Nazi Germany, also known as the Third Reich, is the common name for Germany when it was a totalitarian state ruled by Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 30 January 1933 Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, quickly eliminating all opposition to rule as sole leader. The state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Historians have emphasized the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly...Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal..." Under the "leader principle," the Führer's word was above all other laws. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power and gain favor with the Führer. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi government restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning practices. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of the Autobahns. The return to economic stability gave the regime enormous popularity; the suppression of all opposition made Hitler's rule mostly unchallenged.
Racism, especially antisemitism, was a main tenet of society in Nazi Germany. The Gestapo (secret state police) and SS under Heinrich Himmler destroyed the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition, and persecuted and murdered Jews and other "undesirables." It was believed that the Germanic peoples—who were also referred to as the Nordic race—were the purest representation of the Aryan race, and were therefore the master race. Education focused on racial biology, population policy, and physical fitness. Membership in the Hitler Youth organization became compulsory. The number of women enrolled in post-secondary education plummeted, and career opportunities were curtailed. Calling women's rights a "product of the Jewish intellect," the Nazis practiced what they called "emancipation from emancipation." Entertainment and tourism were organized via the Strength Through Joy program. The government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific forms of art and discouraging or banning others. The Nazis mounted the infamous Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition in 1937. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, and Hitler's hypnotizing oratory to control public opinion.The 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage.
Germany made increasingly aggressive demands, threatening war if they were not met. Britain and France responded with appeasement, hoping Hitler would finally be satisfied. Austria was annexed in 1938, and the Sudetenland was taken via the Munich Agreement in 1938, with the rest of Czechoslovakia taken over in 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939, starting World War II. In alliance with Benito Mussolini's Italy, Germany conquered France and most of Europe by 1940, and threatened its remaining major foe: Great Britain. Reich Commissariats took brutal control of conquered areas, and a German administration termed the General Government was established in Poland. Concentration camps, established as early as 1933, were used to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime. The number of camps quadrupled between 1939 and 1942 to 300+, as slave-laborers from across Europe, Jews, political prisoners, criminals, homosexuals, gypsies, the mentally ill and others were imprisoned. The system that began as an instrument of political oppression culminated in the mass genocide of Jews and other minorities in The Holocaust.
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide turned against the Third Reich in the major military defeats of the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk in 1943. The Soviet counter-attacks became the largest land battles in history. Large-scale systematic bombing of all major German cities, rail lines and oil plants escalated in 1944, shutting down the Luftwaffe (German Air Force). Germany was overrun in 1945 by the Soviets from the east and the Allies from the west. The victorious Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials.
Name
The official name of the state was the Deutsches Reich ("German Reich") from 1933 to 1943, and the Großdeutsches Reich ("Greater German Reich") from 1943 to 1945. The name Deutsches Reich is usually translated into English as "German Empire" or "German Reich".The term "Reich" does not always connote an empire; the official name of Germany remained "Deutsches Reich" during the Weimar period.
The most popular English terms are "Nazi Germany" and "Third Reich." The latter was adopted by the Nazis and first used in a 1923 novel by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck,that counted the medieval Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) as the first and the German Empire (1871–1918) as the second. The Nazis ignored the previous Weimar Republic (1918–1933), which the Nazis denounced as a historical aberration, contemptuously referring to it as "the System". Historiographically, Germans today refer to the period as Zeit des Nationalsozialismus or the abbreviated NS-Zeit ("National Socialist period"). A formal term frequently used in political speech or legal context is Nationalsozialistische Gewaltherrschaft (referring more specifically to the Nazi terror regime).
History
The Nazi movement arose among angry young veterans in the early 1920s; they rejected the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the Weimar republic, and democracy generally. They called for a revival of the Aryan race and blamed the Jews for Germany's troubles. Highly effective Nazi propaganda effectively used the "Stab-in-the-back legend" to explain the German military defeat in 1918—that is that Jews, Communists and other subversives in Berlin were to blame. The Nazi movement was small until the onset of the 1929 global Great Depression. The subsequent fallout intensified the reaction against the modernity and liberalism of the Weimar Republic,. Simultaneously, on the left, the Communist Party of Germany, controlled by Moscow, gained strength as the middle was squeezed. Many Germans decided the Nazi Party was capable of restoring order, quelling civil unrest, and restoring Germany's international reputation.
The Nazis promised a strong authoritarian government, civic peace, radical economic policies (including full employment), increased Lebensraum ("living space") for Germanic peoples, formation of a national community based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews. The Nazis promised national and cultural renewal based upon the Völkisch movement, traditionalism, proposed rearmament, repudiation of reparations, and reclamation of territory lost to the Treaty of Versailles. After the federal election of 1932, the Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag, holding 230 seats.
