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Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933– 1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of National Socialism with Adolf Hitler as dictator.
The term Nazi is a short form of the German Nationalsozialismus; the ideology was institutionalized in the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), the Nazi Party or NSDAP for short.
The Third Reich is an Anglicization of the German expression Drittes Reich, and is used as a near- synonym for Nazi Germany, that refers to the government and its agencies rather than the land and its people. The term was first used in 1922, as the title of a book, by conservative writer Arthur Moeller van den Bruck . It was adopted by Nazi propaganda, which counted the Holy Roman Empire as the first Reich, the 1871– 1918Events January January 8 President Woodrow Wilson announces his " Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I. February February 3 The Twin Peaks Tunnel begins service in San Francisco as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world (11,920 feet long). German EmpireThe term German Empire (the translation from German of Deutsches Reich commonly refers to Germany, from its consolidation as a unified nation-state in January 1871, until the abdication of Kaiser ( Emperor) Wilhelm II in November 1918. Germans, when refer the second, and its own regime as the third. This was done in order to suggest a return to alleged former German glory after the perceived failure of the 1919Events January January 1 Edsel Ford succeeds his father as head of the Ford Motor Company January 5 Spartacist uprising Socialist demonstrations in Berlin turn into attempted communist revolution with Spartacist League in the forefront January 9 Spartacus Weimar RepublicThe period of German history from 1919 to 1933 is known as the Weimar Republic (in German Weimarer Republik ). It is named after the city of Weimar, where a national assembly convened to produce a new constitution after Germany's defeat in World War I.. The disorder and poverty caused in the wake of World War IWorld War I (also known as the First World War , the Great War the War of the Nations and the "War to End All Wars") was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers, or involved so many in the field of allowed the Nazis to easily seize power, and take advantage of former foes who had no taste for more bloodshed.
The Third Reich was sometimes also referred to as the "Thousand Year Reich", as it was intended by its founder to stand for one thousand years — similar to the Holy Roman Empire. The Nazi Party attempted to combine traditional symbols of Germany with Nazi Party symbols in an effort to reinforce the perception of them as being one and the same. Thus the Nazi Party used the terms "Third Reich" and "Thousand Year Reich" to connect the allegedly glorious past to its supposedly glorious future. Initially Hitler's plans seemed to be well on their way to fruition. At its height, the Third Reich controlled the greater part of Europe. However, due to the defeat by the Allied powers in World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough, the Thousand Year Reich in fact lasted only 12 years (from 1933 through to 1945).
During their 12-year rule, the Nazis sent massive armies throughout almost all of continental Europe (with the exception of Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal and the land near the Ural Mountains). As part of this, the Nazis endorsed the idea of a Greater Germany with Berlin renamed Germania as its capital, and integration of all people of supposed pure Germanic origin. This policy manifested itself in the death of 11 million racial minorities and other social outcasts, as well as tens of millions of others as a direct or indirect result of combat.
The swastika — symbol of Nazi Germany