Growin Up in Germany 1945

Title your Story Part

Tap here to start writing

Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich—officially called Deutsches Reich and later Großdeutsches Reich, or literally translated "Great German Realm" often translated as "Greater German Empire" (the word "greater" in German is "größeres" not "groß"; the word "Kaiserreich," and in some cases "Kaisertum," is the literal translation of empire)—refers to Germany in the years of 1933 to 1945, when it was governed by the dictatorship of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party), abbreviated as Nazi Party, with  as chancellor and, from 1934, as head of state called the Führer (Leader) who ruled Germany under a totalitarian dictatorship until 1945.

The policies pursued by Nazi Germany, based on the concept of , "Aryan," Nordic racial purity, , revenge for Germany's territorial losses and perceived loss of national pride at the , and  directed at the  were among the leading causes of the  and the Nazi regime's systematic mass murder of millions of  and other minorities in the  known as the or Shoah. The Holocaust was characterized by the efficient and systematic attempt on an industrial scale to assemble and kill as many people as possible, using all of the resources and technology available to the Nazi state. Approximately eleven million victims died, of whom about six million were Jews. Thousands of others were imprisoned.

Territory

In addition to Weimar-era , the Reich came to include areas with ethnic German populations such as , the Sudetenland and the territory of Memel in the years leading up to the war.

Other regions were acquired after the outbreak of conflict, but had been part of Imperial Germany prior to the  and had varying German populations: Eupen-et-Malmédy, Alsace-Lorraine, Danzig and parts of Poland.

The map shows territory controlled by Nazi Germany

Animated map showing German and Axis allies' conquests in Europe throughout World War II. (Click through to the full-size image to view the animated version.)

Outside of what was directly annexed into Germany, were regional territories created in occupied land. In the occupied areas of the Soviet Union, occupational territories were called Reichskommissarats. These included Reichskommissariat Ostland and Reichskommissariat Ukraine, which were designed to foster German colonization of Eastern Europe. In northern and western Europe, occupation authorities aided by Nazi sympathizers ran the governments of , , the , , and northern  (after 1942, all of France). In parts of northern France, travel restrictions were imposed by the Nazi occupation authorities, as the Nazi regime intended to colonize those areas with German citizens.

The Reich's borders had changed de facto well before its military defeat in May 1945, as the German population fled westward from the advancing Red Army and the Western Allies pressed eastward from France, to fight one final major battle called the . By the end of the war, a small strip of land stretching from Austria to Bohemia and Moravia—as well as a few other isolated regions—were the only areas not under Allied control. Upon its defeat, the Reich was in a state of debellation and was replaced by occupation zones administrated by , the , the  and the . The prewar German lands east of the Oder-Neisse line and Stettin and its surrounding area were permanently sundered from Germany for annexation by and the .

Names

The Nazi Party used the terms Drittes Reich and Tausendjähriges Reich ("Thousand-Year Realm/Empire") to describe the greater German ethnic empire they wished to forge. The term Third Reich referred to the Nazi recognition of former incarnations of important German realms while alluding to envisioned future prosperity and the new nation's alleged destiny. But on July 10, 1939, it was dropped from  at Hitler's behest. The  ("Heiliges Römisches Reich," later with the appendage "Deutscher Nation"), deemed the First Empire or First Reich, had lasted almost a thousand years from 843 to 1806. The term Tausendjähriges Reich was used only briefly and also dropped from propaganda in 1939, officially to avoid mockery and possibly to even avoid religious connotations. In speeches, books and articles about the Third Reich after May 8, 1945, the phrase has taken on a new meaning and the early Nazi professions about a "thousand year" empire are often juxtaposed against the 12 years that the Third Reich actually existed.