German Reich
German Reich (lit. German Realm, German Empire, from German: Deutsches Reich, pronounced [ˌdɔʏtʃəs ˈʁaɪç] ⓘ) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 18 January 1871 to 5 June 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.
This article is about the historical name for the German nation state. For the Third Reich, see Nazi Germany. For its use in a narrower sense for the period 1871–1933, see German Empire and Weimar Republic.The Federal Republic of Germany asserted, following its establishment on 23 May 1949, that within its boundaries it was the sole legal continuation of the German Reich, and consequently not 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 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;[1] 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[2] 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.
Following the Anschluss annexation of Austria in 1938, Nazi Germany informally named itself the Greater German Reich (German: Großdeutsches Reich). This name was made the official state name only during the last two years (1943–1945) of Nazi rule under Adolf Hitler,[3] although the change was never proclaimed. After World War II, the denotation "German Reich" quickly fell into disuse in Allied-occupied Germany, however, and the state's continued existence remained a matter of debate; the post-war Bonn Republic maintained the continued existence of the German Reich as an 'overall state", but dormant while East and West Germany continued to be divided. Nevertheless, when Germany was reunited in 1990 the term "German Reich" was not revived as a title for the Berlin Republic.
Reich as "national people" versus Reich as "state territory"[edit]
At the 1871 Unification of Germany (aside from Austria), the Reich was established constitutionally as a federation of monarchies, each having entered the federation with a defined territory; and consequently the unitary nationalism of the 'German Reich' was initially specified (at Article 1 of the 1871 constitution) in territorial terms, as the lands within the former boundaries of this particular subset of German monarchies.[8] This geographical understanding of the Reich became steadily superseded in the period up to the first World War by an understanding of the German Reich as a unitary nation state identified with the German national people according to the principle of jus sanguinis, and drawing on the rhetoric of "the sovereignty of the nation" in the Frankfurt Constitution[9]—albeit that many ethnic "Germans" (as with the German-speaking peoples of Austria) remained outside the national people constituting the German Empire of 1871 and also that the Empire of 1871 included extensive territories (such as Posen) with predominantly non-German populations. This transition became formalised in the constitution of the Weimar Republic,[10] where Article 1 identifies the Reich as deriving its authority from the German national people, while Article 2 identifies the state territory under the Reich as the lands which, at the time of the constitution's adoption, were within the authority of the German state. The identity of Reich and people ran both ways—not only did the institutions of the German state derive their legitimacy from the German people, so, too, the German people derived their inherent identity and patriotic duties from their being collectively constituted as an organ and institution of the German Reich.[11] Subsequently the term "German Reich" continued to be applied both as identifying with the national people, and also with the state territory; but increasingly, the application of the term to the German national people came to be seen as primary.[12] Following the Second World War, the term "German Reich" fell out of use in constitutional formulations, being replaced by the term "nation as a whole", as applied to denote the state as a totality of the German national people; and the term "Germany as a whole", as applied to denote the state as a totality of German national territory.
Nazi perspective on the Weimar Republic[edit]
The 1918–1933 republic, which was also called the German Reich, was ignored and denounced by the Nazis as a historical aberration. The name "Weimar Republic" was first used in 1929 after Hitler referred to the period as the "Republik von Weimar" (Republic of Weimar, after the city (Weimar) which held its constitutional assembly) at a rally in Munich with the term later becoming mainstream during the 1930s both within and outside Germany.[13] The Nazis also contemptuously referred to it as "the System".[14]
Fall of the Third Reich[edit]
On 8 May 1945, with the capitulation of the German armed forces, the supreme command of the Wehrmacht was handed over to the Allies. The Allies refused to recognise Karl Dönitz as Reichspräsident or to recognise the legitimacy of his Flensburg Government (so-called because it was based at Flensburg and controlled only a small area around the town) and, on 5 June 1945, the four powers signed the Berlin Declaration and assumed de jure supreme authority with respect to Germany.[15] The declaration confirmed the complete legal extinction of the Third Reich with the death of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945, but asserted the continued subsequent existence of a German people and a German national territory; although subject to the four signatory powers also asserting their authority to determine the future boundaries of Germany.[16]
At the Potsdam Conference, Allied-occupied Germany was defined as comprising "Germany as a whole"; and was divided into British, French, American and Soviet occupation zones; while the Allied Powers exercised the state authority assumed by the Berlin Declaration in transferring the former eastern territories of the German Reich east of the Oder–Neisse line to the Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union.
Reunified Germany[edit]
When the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany between Germany and the wartime Allies was signed on 12 September 1990, there was no mention of the term Deutsches Reich, however the Allies paraphrased the international legal personality of Germany as "Germany as a whole" in the English version of the text. Instead the states of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany, FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, GDR) agreed to be bound by certain conditions which they had to ratify, one of which was the recognising the reunification of East Germany, West Germany and Berlin as constituting the full achievement of a united Germany. On meeting these conditions under Article 7.2 "The United Germany [has] accordingly full sovereignty over its internal and external affairs."[19]
Under Article 1 of the Treaty on Final Settlement, the new united Germany committed itself to renouncing any further territorial claims beyond the boundaries of East Germany, West Germany and Berlin; "The united Germany has no territorial claims whatsoever against other states and shall not assert any in the future." Furthermore the Basic Law of the Federal Republic was required to be amended to state explicitly that full German unification had now been achieved, such that the new German state comprised the entirety of Germany, and that all constitutional mechanisms should be removed by which any territories outside those boundaries could otherwise subsequently be admitted; these amendments being bound by treaty not to be revoked. Article 23 of the Basic Law was repealed, closing off the possibility for any further states to apply for membership of the Federal Republic; while Article 146 was amended to state explicitly that the territory of the newly unified republic comprised the entirety of the German people; "This Basic Law, which since the achievement of the unity and freedom of Germany applies to the entire German people, shall cease to apply on the day on which a constitution freely adopted by the German people takes effect". This was confirmed in the 1990 rewording of the preamble; "Germans..have achieved the unity and freedom of Germany in free self-determination. This Basic Law thus applies to the entire German people." In place of the former Article 23 under which the former GDR had declared its accession to the Federal Republic, a new Article 23 embedded the accession of the Federal Republic to the European Union within the Basic Law; hence with the subsequent accession of Poland to the EU, the constitutional bar on pursuing any claim to territories beyond the Oder–Neisse line was reinforced. Insofar as the German Reich may be claimed to continue in existence as 'Germany as a whole', the former eastern territories of Germany in Poland or Russia, and the western territories, such as the East Cantons or Alsace-Lorraine, are now definitively and permanently excluded from ever again being united within this Reich under the Basic Law.
Hence, although the GDR had by the Volkskammer's declaration of accession to the Federal Republic, initiated the process of reunification; the act of reunification itself (with its many specific terms and conditions; including the fundamental amendments to the Basic Law required by the Treaty of Final Settlement) was achieved constitutionally by the subsequent Unification Treaty of 31 August 1990; that is through a binding agreement between the former GDR and the Federal Republic now recognising each another as separate sovereign states in international law.[20] This treaty was then voted into effect by both the Volkskammer and the Bundestag by the constitutionally required two-thirds majorities; effecting on the one hand, the extinction of the GDR, and on the other, the agreed amendments to the Basic Law of the Federal Republic. Hence, although the GDR had nominally declared its accession to the Federal Republic under Article 23 of the Basic Law, this did not imply its acceptance of the Basic Law as it then stood; but rather of the Basic Law as subsequently amended in line with the Unification Treaty and the Treaty of Final Settlement. These amendments had the effect of removing all those clauses by which the Federal Constitutional Court had formerly maintained the identity of the Federal Republic with the historic 'German Reich', specifically including the very Article 23 that had provided the basis for the Volkskammer's declaration of accession.