German Reich

German Reich (lit. 'German Empire' or 'German Realm', from German: Deutsches Reich) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The Reich became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty entirely from a continuing unitary German Volk ("national people"), with that authority and sovereignty being exercised at any one time over a unitary German "state territory" with variable boundaries and extent. Although commonly translated as "German Empire", the word Reich here better translates as "realm" or territorial "reach", in that the term does not in itself have monarchical connotations.

The name "German Reich" was officially proclaimed on 18 January 1871 at the Palace of Versailles by Otto von Bismarck and Wilhelm I of Prussia. After the annexation of Austria to Germany on 12–13 March 1938, the name "Greater German Reich" (German: Großdeutsches Reich) began to be used along with the official name "German Reich". According to the decree of the Chief of the Reich Chancellery Hans Lammers of 26 June 1943, the name "Greater German Reich" became mandatory in official documents.

The German Reich collapsed de facto with the death of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945, when the Allies decided not to recognise Karl Dönitz as the Reich President and to grant no legitimacy to the Flensburg Government he had formed. On 5 June 1945, the Allies signed the Berlin Declaration concerning the defeat of Germany, by which they established the Allied Control Council and assumed supreme authority over German territory.

The Federal Republic of Germany asserted, following its establishment on 23 May 1949, that [within its boundaries] it was a continuation of the German Reich, not just a successor state. Nevertheless, the Federal Republic did not maintain the specific title German Reich, and so consistently replaced the prefix Reichs- in all official titles and designations with Bundes- ("Federal"). Hence, for instance, the office of the Reichskanzler became the Bundeskanzler. Following German reunification on 3 October 1990, the expanded Federal Republic describes itself as "United Germany", emphasizing that it does not now recognize any territories once included in the former German Reich outside its boundaries as having a valid claim to be a part of Germany as a whole.

In referring to the entire period between 1871 and 1945, the partially translated English phrase "German Reich" (/-ˈraɪk/) is applied by historians in formal contexts; although in common English usage this state was and is known simply as Germany, the English term "German Empire" is reserved to denote the German state between 1871 and 1918.

The history of the nation state known as the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods:

However the term Deutsches Reich dates back earlier than all of this. It was occasionally applied in contemporary maps to the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806), also called the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" from 1512. The Holy Roman Empire however was not exclusively German-speaking but constituted a supranational entity extending beyond the frontiers of the German language area (Sprachraum). The first attempt to re-establish a "German Empire" during the 1848 March Revolution by the Frankfurt Constitution ultimately failed: it was aborted by the monarchs of the German Confederation, especially by the Prussian aristocracy and the King of Prussia himself, which opposed German nationalism, as then was associated with the idea of popular sovereignty.

A 1923 book entitled Das Dritte Reich by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck counted the medieval Holy Roman Empire as the first, and the 1871–1918 monarchy as the second, which was then to be followed by a "reinvigorated" third one. Subsequently the Nazi regime was (unofficially) called the "Third Reich"; this usage was sometimes contemporaneous, but mostly retrospective and applied by non-Germans.