NAZI GERMANY

(Redirected from Third Reich)

'Nazi Germany', or the 'Third Reich' — officially called '''Deutsches Reich''' ("German Reich") and later '''Großdeutsches Reich''' ("Greater German Reich") — refers to Germany in the years of 1933 to 1945, when it was governed by the ''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (National Socialist German Workers Party, or "Nazi Party"), with Adolf Hitler as chancellor and, from 1934, as head of state called the ''Führer'' (Leader).
The policies pursued by Nazi Germany were, based on the concept of ''Lebensraum''; "Aryan" racial purity; anti-Semitism; revenge for Germany's territorial losses at the Treaty of Versailles and the perceived loss of pride because of it; and anti-communism directed at the Soviet Union were among the leading causes of the Second World War and the Nazi regime's systematic mass murder of millions of Jews, political opponents, and other minorities in the genocide known as the Holocaust or Shoah. By the end of the war, Germany's major infrastructure was destroyed — and many of its major cities were in ruin as the result of Allied bombings, intense urban warfare (especially in Berlin), and, in some cases, self-created areas of destruction to slow the advance of Allied forces.
Under the Nazi regime, Germany, from a military and territorial standpoint, became the dominant nation state in Europe by the early 1940s. After the annexation of Austria in 1938, Nazi Germany became the first united German state since the Holy Roman Empire to include Austria within its boundaries which was ended after the Nazi regime's defeat in 1945. The fall of the Nazi regime also saw the complete dissolution of Prussia as a regional component of Germany.

Names

#REDIRECT [[1]] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eicxo0grsaM
Ross Malloy was the head of the Nazis and was the reason they lost the war. He commanded his troops to do something called the monty python manouvre, which required every-one to act like complete retards. His hair was so bright it was like a homing beacon for the british bomb raids.
The official name of Germany did not change after the Nazis came to power in 1933. It remained ''Deutsches Reich'' (literally translated as German Empire), the same as it had been since 1871. It was only in 1943 that the Nazi government officially modified the name of Germany, calling it ''Großdeutsches Reich'' (literally translated as Greater German Empire), which remained in use until the defeat of Nazi Germany in May, 1945.
The Nazi Party used the terms ''Drittes Reich'' ("Third Empire") and ''Tausendjähriges Reich'' ("Thousand-Year Empire") to describe the greater German ethnic empire they wished to forge. 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 8 May 1945, the phrase has taken on a new meaning and the early Nazi professions about a "thousand-year" empire are often juxtaposed against the twelve years that the Third Reich actually existed.
The term Third Reich referred to the Nazi recognition of former incarnations of German empires while alluding to envisioned future prosperity and the new nation's alleged destiny. But on 10 July 1939, it was dropped from propaganda at Hitler's behest. The Holy Roman Empire ("Heiliges Römisches Reich," later with the appendage "Deutscher Nation"), deemed the ''First Reich'', had lasted almost a thousand years, from 843 to 1806, hence the Nazi reference to the 1000 year Reich. ''Second Reich'' was the Prussian-ruled monarchy called the German Empire and the first firmly unified German state which existed from 1871 until its replacement by the Weimar Republic following the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, and the abolition of the Empire in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The term was taken by the Nazis from the 1923 book ''Das Dritte Reich'' ("The Third Reich"), by the cultural historian and writer Arthur Moeller van den Bruck — who was an anti-Versailles German nationalist, but far from enthusiastic about Hitler, whom he met in 1922.

Territory

In addition to Weimar-era Germany proper, the Reich came to include areas with ethnic German populations such as Austria, the Sudetenland and the territory of Memel in the years leading up to the war.
Other regions were acquired only after the outbreak of conflict, but, like Memel, had been part of Imperial Germany prior to the Treaty of Versailles and had varying German populations: Eupen-et-Malmédy, Alsace-Lorraine, Danzig and parts of Poland. Some other acquired regions, especially parts of Slovenia and Polish Galicia, had once been part of the Austrian Empire. In addition, from 1939 to 1945, the Reich ruled Bohemia and Moravia as a Protectorate, subjugated and annexed prior to the start of the world war. Although considered a part of Greater Germany, the protectorate had its own currency.[2] Czech Silesia was incorporated into the province of Silesia during the same period. In 1942 Luxembourg was directly annexed into Germany. Central Poland and Polish Galicia, were run by a protectorate government called the General Government Central Poland which composed the General Government had not been part of any German state for centuries though Galicia had been part of the Austrian empire. The General Government was created to control central Poland and eventually eliminate the Polish people through forced Germanization and exterminating those Poles who refused to be assimilated or who were not deemed to be racially acceptable. By late 1943, Germany not only seized South Tyrol and Istria which had been under Austrian rule before 1918, but also seized Venice from its erstwhile ally Italy after it capitulated to the Allies. The states composing Germany were restricted in sovereignty by the Nazi regime and replaced in their political rights by Gaue, districts led by representatives called ''Gauleiter'' who were completely loyal to the central government. In the majority of cases that Gauleiter was responsible in personal union for the ''Reichsgau'', too. These administrative changes dismantled the regional political hegemony which had been held by Prussia over German affairs since 1871. However the title of the Prime Minister of Prussia, used by Hermann Göring from 1933-1945, and other titles still remained in use.
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 ''Reichskommissarat''. 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 Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and northern France (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. 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 France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. The prewar German lands east of the Oder-Neisse line and Stettin and its surrounding area were set under Polish and Soviet administration but factual sundered from Germany for annexation by Poland and the Soviet Union. These territorial changes resulted in the complete dissolution of Prussia as a German territorial component and was neither identified as a regional entity of Poland or the Soviet Union (Kaliningrad region). By signing the Treaty of Warsaw (1970) and the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (1990), Germany finally confirmed to abdicate any claims to territories lost during the Second World War.

Nazi ideology

The Nazi regime took its ideological basis mainly from the ideals of Pan-Germanism, anti-Semitism, and Social Darwinism. From an international perspective, Nazism had much of the ideological basis of fascism which originally developed in Italy under Benito Mussolini. Both ideologies involved the political use of militarism, nationalism, anti-communism, holism, paramilitaries, and intended to create a dictatorship-led state. However, the Nazis were far more racially-oriented than fascists in Italy, Portugal, and Spain and the Nazis were intent on creating a completely totalitarian state, unlike Italian fascists who allowed a larger degree of private liberties for their citizens than the Nazis permitted, and allowed the Italian monarchy to continue to exist and have some official powers.

Adolf Hitler, the ''Führer'' ("Leader") of the Nazi party and then Germany from 1934 to 1945. Photograph by Heinrich Hoffmann.

The totalitarian nature of the Nazi party was one of its principal tenets. The Nazis connected that all the great achievements in the past of the German nation and its people were associated with the ideals of National Socialism even before the ideology officially existed. Propaganda accredited the consolidation of Nazi ideals and successes of the regime to regime's "Leader", or ''Führer'', Adolf Hitler, who was portrayed by himself and propaganda as the genius behind the Nazi party's success and Germany's saviour. Hitler's ability to grasp the attention of audiences through his powerful speeches helped him earn a cult following by his Nazi followers. To secure their ability to create a totalitarian state, the Nazi party's paramilitary force, the Sturmabteilung (SA) "Storm Unit", used acts of violence against leftists, democrats, Jews, and other opposition or minority groups. The SA's violence created climates of fear in cities, with people fearing punishment and even death if they displayed opposition to the Nazis. The SA also helped attract large numbers of alienated and unemployed youth to join the party.
The Nazis endorsed the concept of "''Großdeutschland''", or Greater Germany, and believed that the incorporation of the Germanic people into one nation was a vital step towards their national success. Similarly, the "German problem", as it is often referred to in English scholarship, focuses on the issue of administration of Germanic regions within Northern and Central Europe, an important theme throughout German history.^[3] The "logic" of keeping Germany small worked in the favor of its principal economic rivals, and had been a driving force in the recreation of a Polish state. The goal was to create numerous counterweights in order to "balance out Germany's power". However it was the German passionate support of the Volk concept that led to Germany's expansion, that gave legitimacy and the support needed for the Third Reich to proceed to gain back territories with German populations that were recently lost, long lost territory (i.e., former Prussian territory lost to Poland in the 1800s), part of Austria, or "needed" as the Nazi regime claimed for Lebensraum (living space) for a growing population. Two important issues were administration of the Polish corridor and Danzig's incorporation into the Reich. As a further extension of racial policy, the Lebensraum program, adapted in the midst of the war, pertained to similar interests; it was decided that Eastern Europe would be settled with ethnic Germans, and the Slavic population who met the Nazi racial standard would be absorbed into the Reich. Those not fitting the racial standards were to be used as cheap labour force or deported eastward.^[4]

Anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazis depicting racial stereotypes of Jews. This is a poster for the anti-Semitic film made by the Nazis called ''The Eternal Jew''.

Racism was an important aspect of society within the Third Reich. The Nazis also combined anti-Semitism with anti-Communist ideology and regarded the leftist movement — as well as international market capitalism — as the work of "Conspiratorial Jewry". They referred to this so-called movement as the "Jewish-Bolshevistic revolution of subhumans."^[5] This platform manifested itself in the displacement, internment and later, the systematic extermination of an estimated eleven to twelve million people in the midst of World War II, roughly half of whom being Jews targeted in what is historically remembered as the Holocaust (Shoah), and another 100,000-1,000,000 being Roma, who were murdered in what they call the Porajmos. Other victims of Nazi persecution included communists, blacks, various political opponents, social outcasts, homosexuals, religious dissidents such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Freemasons, and unyielding Church-affiliated leadership (Confessing Church of German Lutherans and resisting Roman Catholic clergy).
World War II officially began after Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, which led to France and the United Kingdom both declaring war on Nazi Germany. The global conflict that followed left Europe in ruins and led to the deaths of roughly sixty-two million people.

Government

In the wake of the loss of land and perceived national humiliation imposed through the Treaty of Versailles, civil unrest, the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s spurred by the stock market crash in the U.S., the counter-traditionalism of the Weimar period and the threat of Soviet-sponsored communism in Germany, many voters began turning their support towards the Nazi Party, which promised strong government, an end to civil unrest, radical changes to economic policy, cultural renewal based on traditionalism, military rearmament in opposition to the Treaty of Versailles, and to bring back national pride that the Nazis claimed was lost in the Treaty of Versailles and by liberal democracy.^[5]. The Nazis also endorsed the ''Dolchstosslegende'' ("Stab in the back legend") which figured prominently in their propaganda as it did in propaganda of most other nationalist-leaning parties in Germany.
From 1925 to the 1930s, the German government devolved from a democracy to a ''de facto'' conservative-nationalist authoritarian state under President and war hero Paul von Hindenburg, who opposed the liberal democratic nature of the Weimar Republic and wanted to find a way to officially make Germany into an authoritarian state. The natural ally of the foundation of an authoritarian state had been the German National People's Party (DNVP or "the Nationalists"), but increasingly after 1929, more fanatic and younger generation nationalists were attracted to the revolutionary nature of the Nazi party, to challenge the rising support for communism as the German economy floundered. By 1932, the Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag. Hindenburg was reluctant to give any substantial power to Hitler, but worked out an alliance between the Nazis and the DNVP which would allow him to develop an authoritarian state. But Hitler consistently demanded on being appointed chancellor in order for Hindenburg to receive any Nazi Party support of his administration.
On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by Hindenburg after attempts by General Kurt von Schleicher to form a viable government failed. Hindenburg was put under pressure by Hitler through his son Oskar von Hindenburg, as well as intrigue from former Chancellor Franz von Papen following his collection of participating financial interests and own ambitions to combat communism. Even though the Nazis had gained the largest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they had no majority of their own, and just a slim majority in parliament with their Papen-proposed Nationalist DNVP-NSDAP coalition. This coalition ruled through accepted continuance of the Presidential decree, issued under Article 48 of the 1919 constitution.
The Nazi attacks on the Jews in the early months of 1933 marked the first step in a longer-term process of removing them from German society.^[6] By the summer of 1933, this process was on its way to becoming quite disastrous. This process also marked the core of Adolf Hitler's "cultural revolution" whereby the Nazi mind had begun to transform in a manner conducive to anti-Semitism, anti-communism, and anti-liberalism.

Consolidation of power

March at Reichsparteitag 1935

The new government installed a totalitarian dictatorship in a series of measures in quick succession (see ''Gleichschaltung'' for details).
On the night of February 27th, the Reichstag building was set on fire and Dutch council communist Marinus van der Lubbe was found inside the building. He was arrested and charged with starting the blaze. The event had an immediate effect on thousands of anarchists, socialists and communists throughout the Reich, many who were sent to the Dachau concentration camp. The unnerved public worried that the fire had been a signal meant to initiate the communist revolution and the Nazis found the event to be of immeasurable value in getting rid of potential insurgents. The event was quickly followed by the Reichstag Fire Decree, rescinding habeas corpus and other civil liberties.
The Enabling Act was passed in March 1933, with 444 votes, to the 94 of the remaining Social Democrats. The act gave the government (and thus effectively the Nazi Party) legislative powers and also authorized it to deviate from the provisions of the constitution for four years. With these powers, Hitler removed the remaining opposition and turned the Weimar Republic into the "Third Reich".
In order for Hitler to create the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, it had to become a one party state. This was achieved by the Nazis as by June 1933 the Social Democrats had been banned, the Communists had been banned and the German Nationalists (DNVP), German People's Party (DVP) and German Democratic Party (DDP) had all been forced to disband. The remaining Catholic Centre Party disbanded themselves on the 5 July 1933 after guarantees over Catholic education and youth groups. On the 14 July 1933 Germany officially declared a one-party state with the passing of the Law against the formation of parties.
Symbols of the Weimar Republic including as the black-red-yellow flag (now the present-day flag of Germany) were abolished by the new regime which adopted both new and old imperial symbolism to represent the dual nature of the imperialist-Nazi regime of 1933. The old imperial black-white-red tricolour, almost completely abandoned during the Weimar Republic, was restored as one of Germany's two officially legal national flags. The other official national flag was the swastika flag of the Nazi party. It became the sole national flag in 1935.
Further consolidation of power was achieved on 30 January 1934, with the ''Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reichs'' (Act to rebuild the Reich). The act changed the highly decentralized federal Germany of the Weimar era into a centralized state. It disbanded state parliaments, transferring sovereign rights of the states to the Reich central government and put the state administrations under the control of the Reich administration.
Only the army remained independent from Nazi control. The German army had traditionally been separated from the government and somewhat of an entity of its own. The Nazi paramilitary SA expected top positions in the new power structure and wanted the regime to follow through its promise of enacting socialist legislation for Aryan Germans. Wanting to preserve good relations with the army and the major industries who were weary of more political violence erupting from the SA, on the night of 30 June 1934, Hitler initiated the violent ''Night of the Long Knives'', a purge of the leadership ranks of Röhm's SA as well as socialist-leaning Nazis (Strasserists), and other political enemies, carried out by another, more elitist, Nazi organization, the SS.
At the death of president Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag merged the offices of ''Reichspräsident'' and ''Reichskanzler'' and reinstalled Hitler with the new title ''Führer und Reichskanzler''. Until the death of Hindenburg, the army did not follow Hitler. However, with the death of Hindenburg, the entire army swore their obedience to Hitler. The Nazis proceeded to scrap their official alliance with the conservative nationalists, and began to introduce Nazi ideology and Nazi symbolism into all major aspects of life in Germany.
The inception of the Gestapo, police acting outside of any civil authority, highlighted the Nazis' intention to use powerful, coercive means to directly control German society. Soon, an army estimated to be of about 100,000 spies and informants operated throughout Germany, reporting to Nazi officials the activities of any critics or dissenters. Most ordinary Germans, happy with the improving economy and better standard of living, remained obedient and quiet, but many political opponents, especially communists and Marxist or international socialists, were reported by omnipresent eavesdropping spies and put in prison camps where many were tortured and killed. It is estimated that tens of thousands of political victims died or disappeared in the first few years of Nazi rule.

Social policy

Nazi social policy was dominated by the desire to create a "perfect" race and demanded a racially pure society. The effects of Nazi social policy in Germany was divided between those considered to be "Aryan" and those considered "non-Aryan", Jewish, or part of other minority groups. For "Aryan" Germans, a number of social policies put through by the regime to benefit them were remarkably progressive for the time, including: advanced health care studies and policies (including state opposition to the use of tobacco, due to health risks), an end to official stigmatization towards Aryan children who were born from parents outside of marriage, as well as giving financial assistance to Aryan German families who bore children. For "non-Aryans", specifically Jews, Roma, and other kinds of minorities, they faced racist laws, lack of any form of social assistance or help, and ethnic persecution and later genocide. The Nazis declared different types of minorities. The treatment of specified minorities was so poor that animals had more rights than these human beings — harmful and cruel experiments on animals were banned in Nazi Germany while harmful and cruel experiments were allowed to happen to "shameful life" (, the Nazi term for Jews and Gypsies).

Racial and social persecution

: ''See also: Racial policy of Nazi Germany''

The "yellow badge" required to be attached to clothing worn by Jews in public in Nazi Germany and occupied territories

The Nazi Party pursued its racial policy aims, and some related social aims, through persecution and killing of those considered "impure" or otherwise "enemies of the Reich." Especially targeted were minority groups such as Jews, Roma (also known as Gypsies), Blacks and other people of color, Slavs, Jehovah's Witnesses ^[7], people with mental or physical disabilities, and homosexuals.
In the years following the Nazi rise to power, many Jews fled the country and were encouraged to do so. By the time the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935, Jews were stripped of their German citizenship and denied government employment. Most Jews employed by Germans lost their jobs at this time, which were being taken by unemployed Germans. Notably, the Nazi government attempted to send 17,000 German Jews of Polish descent back to Poland, a decision which led to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German Jew living in France. This provided the pretext for a pogrom the Nazi Party incited against the Jews on 9 November 1938, which specifically targeted Jewish businesses. The event was called ''Kristallnacht'' (Night of Broken Glass, literally "Crystal Night"); the euphemism was used because the numerous broken windows made the streets look as if covered with crystals. By September 1939, more than 200,000 Jews had left Germany, with the Nazi government seizing any property they left behind.

The aftermath of ''Kristallnacht'', Jewish shops vandalized.

The Nazis also undertook programs targeting "weak" or "unfit" people, such as the T-4 Euthanasia Program, killing tens of thousands of disabled and sick Germans in an effort to "maintain the purity of the German Master race" (German: ''Herrenvolk'') as described by Nazi propagandists. The techniques of mass killing developed in these efforts would later be used in the Holocaust. Under a law passed in 1933, the Nazi regime carried out the compulsory sterilization of over 400,000 individuals labeled as having hereditary defects, ranging from mental illness to alcoholism.
Another component of the Nazi programme of creating racial purity was the ''Lebensborn'', or "Fountain of Life" programme founded in 1936. The programme was aimed at encouraging German soldiers — mainly SS — to reproduce. This included offering SS families support services (including the adoption of racially pure children into suitable SS families) and accommodating racially-valuable women, pregnant with mainly SS men's children, in care homes in Germany and throughout Occupied Europe. ''Lebensborn'' also expanded to encompass the placing of racially pure children forcibly seized from occupied countries — such as Poland — with German families.

A member of the U.S. Congressional Nazi crimes committee visiting Buchenwald concentration camp shortly after its liberation

In the 1930s, plans to isolate and eventually eliminate Jews completely in Germany began with the construction of ghettos, concentration camps and labour camps. In 1942, at the Wannsee Conference, Nazi officials made clear their intention to elliminate the Jews of Europe as quickly as possible, when they discussed the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". Extermination camps like Auschwitz used gas chambers to kill as many Jews as possible and cremated the bodies. By 1945, a number of concentration camps had been liberated by Allied forces who found the survivors to be severely malnourished from starvation. The Allies also found evidence that the Nazis were profiteering off of the mass murder of Jews not only by confiscating their property and personal valuables but also by extracting gold fillings from the bodies of some Jews held in concentration camps.

Social welfare

Recent research by academics such as Götz Aly has emphasized the role of the extensive Nazi social welfare programs that supposedly helped maintain public support for the regime that lasted long into the war. Heavily focused on was the idea of a national German community. To aid the fostering of a feeling of community, the German people's labor and entertainment experiences — from festivals, to vacation trips and traveling cinemas — were all made a part of the "Strength through Joy" (''Kraft durch Freude'') program. Also crucial to the building of loyalty and comradeship was the implementation of the National Labor Service and the Hitler Youth Organization, with compulsory membership. In addition to this, a number of architectural projects were undertaken. The construction of the Autobahn made it the first National Motor Highway system in the world. Between 1933 and 1936, Germany outpaced the United States in construction, automobile production and employment.

Public health

According to the research of Robert N. Proctor for his book "The Nazi War on cancer"^[8]^[9], Nazi Germany had arguably the most powerful anti-tobacco movement in the world. Anti-tobacco research received a strong backing from the government, and German scientists proved that cigarette smoke could cause cancer. German pioneering research on experimental epidemiology lead to the 1939 paper by Franz H. Müller, and the 1943 paper by Eberhard Schairer and Erich Schöniger which convincingly demonstrated that tobacco smoking was a main culprit in lung cancer. The government urged German doctors to counsel patients against tobacco use.
German research on the dangers of tobacco was silenced after the war, and the dangers of tobacco had to be rediscovered by American and English scientists in the early 1950s, with a medical consensus arising in the early 1960s.
German scientists also proved that asbestos was a health hazard, and in 1943 — as the first nation in the world to offer such a benefit — Germany recognized the diseases caused by asbestos, e.g., lung cancer, as occupational illnesses eligible for compensation. The German asbestos-cancer research was later used by American lawyers doing battle against the JohnsManville Corporation.
As part of the general public-health campaign in Nazi Germany, water supplies were cleaned up, lead and mercury were removed from consumer products, and women were urged to undergo regular screenings for breast cancer.

Women's rights

The Nazis opposed women's emancipation and opposed the feminist movement, claiming that it was Jewish-led and was bad for both women and men. The Nazi regime advocated a patriarchial society in which German women would recognize the "world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home." ^[10] Hitler claimed that women taking vital jobs away from men during the Great Depression was economically bad for families in that women were only paid 66% of what men earned. At the same time for calling for women to leave work, the regime called for women to be actively supportive of the state regarding women's affairs. In 1933, Hitler appointed Gertrud Scholtz-Klink as the Reich Women's Leader, who instructed women that their primary role in society was to bear children and that women should be subservient to men, once saying "the mission of woman is to minister in the home and in her profession to the needs of life from the first to last moment of man's existence." . Organizations were made for the indoctrination of Nazi values to German women. Such organizations included the ''Jungmädel'' (Young Girls) section of the Hitler Youth for girls from the age 10 to 14, the ''Bund Deutscher Mädel'' (German Girl's League) for young women from 14 to 18.
On the issue of sexual affairs regarding women, the Nazis differed greatly from the restrictive stances on women's role in society. The Nazi regime promoted a liberal code of conduct as regards sexual matters, and were sympathetic to women bearing children out of wedlock.^[11] The collapse of 19th century morals in Germany speeded up during the Third Reich, partly due to the Nazis, and partly due to the effects of the war. Promiscuity increased greatly as the war progressed, with unmarried soldiers often dating several women simultaneously. Married women were often involved in multiple affairs simultaneously, with soldiers, civilians or slave laborers.
"Some farm wives in Württemberg had already begun using sex as a commodity, employing carnal favours as a means of getting a full day's work from foreign labourers."

After the war, with women now making up 56% of the population (1946) and the remaining men initially broken and bewildered, women's emancipation took a further step forward. Women now held political posts such as mayors and generally took on a more prominent role.

Animal protection policy

One of the first acts of the new regime was to enact an animal protection law. The implemented law on animal protection was stringent and restricted research. ^[12]^[13]

Economic policy

The ''Reichsmark'' gained significant value during the Third Reich.

When the Nazis came to power the most pressing issue was an unemployment rate of close to 30%. The economic management of the state was first given to respected banker Hjalmar Schacht. Under his guidance, a new economic policy to elevate the nation was drafted. One of the first actions was to destroy the trade unions and impose strict wage controls.
The government then expanded the money supply through massive deficit spending. However at the same time the government imposed a 4.5% interest rate ceiling, creating a massive shortage in borrowable funds. This was resolved by setting up a series of dummy companies that would pay for goods with bonds. The most famous of these was the MEFO company, and these bonds used as currency became known as MEFO bills. While it was promised that these bonds could eventually be exchanged for real money, the repayment was put off until after the collapse of the Reich. These complicated manoeuvres also helped conceal armament expenditures that violated the Treaty of Versailles.
According to economic theory, price control combined with a large increase in the money supply should have produced a large black market, but harsh penalties that saw violators sent to concentration camps or even shot prevented this development. Repressive measures also kept volatility low, reducing inflationary pressures. New policies also limited imports of consumer goods and focused on producing exports. International trade was greatly reduced remaining at about a third of 1929 levels throughout the Nazi period. Currency controls were extended, leading to a considerable overvaluation of the Reichsmark. These policies were successful in cutting unemployment dramatically.
Most industry was not nationalized; however, industry was closely regulated with quotas and requirements to use domestic resources. These regulations were set by administrative committees composed of government and business officials. Competition was limited as major companies were organized into cartels through these administrative committees. Selective nationalization was used against businesses that failed to agree to these arrangements. The banks, which had been nationalized by the Weimar Republic, were returned to their owners and each administrative committee had a bank as member to finance the schemes.
While the strict state intervention into the economy, and the massive rearmament policy, led to full employment during the 1930s, real wages in Germany dropped by roughly 25% between 1933 and 1938. ^[14] Trade unions were abolished, as well as collective bargaining and the right to strike. The right to quit also disappeared: Labour books were introduced in 1935, and required the consent of the previous employer in order to be hired for another job.
The German economy was transferred to the leadership of Hermann Göring when, on 18 October 1936, the German Reichstag announced the formation of a Four-Year Plan. The Nazi economic plan aimed to achieve a number of objectives. Under the leadership of Fritz Todt, a massive public works project, the ''Reichsarbeitsdienst'', was started, rivalling Roosevelt's New Deal in both size and scope. It functioned as a military-like unit, its most notable achievements being the network of ''Autobahnen'' and, once the war started, the building of bunkers, underground facilities and entrenchments all over Europe.
Another part of the new German economy was massive rearmament, with the goal being to expand the 100,000-strong German Army into a force of millions. The Four-Year Plan was discussed in the controversial Hossbach Memorandum, which provides the "minutes" from one of Hitler's briefings. Some use the Hossbach Memorandum to show that Hitler planned a war in Eastern Europe in the pursuit of ''Lebensraum'', believing that the Western powers of the United Kingdom and France would not intervene, leaving him free to take over the USSR, the "natural enemy" of Germany. However, this intentionalist view is disputed.
Nevertheless, the war came and although the Four-Year Plan technically expired in 1940, Hermann Göring had built up a power base in the "Office of the Four-Year Plan" that effectively controlled all German economic and production matters by this point in time. In 1942, the growing burdens of the war and the death of Todt saw the economy move to a full war economy under Albert Speer.

Art and culture

Olympic Stadium
photo Josef Jindřich Šechtl

Traditional and masculine values in German culture were sought to be restored by the regime. All attempts at "artistic experimentation" and "sexual freedom" were repressed.^[15]^[16]
Despite the official attempt to forge a pure Germanic culture, one major area of the arts, architecture, under Hitler's personal guidance, was neoclassical, a style based on architecture of ancient Rome.^[17] This style stood out in stark contrast and opposition to newer, more liberal, and more popular architecture styles of the time such as Art Deco. Various Roman buildings were examined by state architect Albert Speer for architectural designs for state buildings. Speer constructed huge and imposing buildings such as in the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg, and the new Reich Chancellery building in Berlin. One design that was pursued but never built, was a gigantic version of the Pantheon in Rome, called the Volkshalle to be the semi-religious centre of Nazism in a renamed Berlin called Germania, that was to be the "world capital" (''Welthauptstadt''). Also to be constructed was a Triumphal arch several times larger than that found in Paris, which was also based upon a classical styling. Many of the designs for Germania were impractical to construct due to their size and the marshy soil underneath Berlin, materials that were to be used for construction were diverted to the war effort.

Environmental policy

In 1935 the regime enacted the "Reich Nature Protection Act", while not a purely Nazi piece of legislation since parts of its influences pre-dated the Nazi rise to power, it nevertheless reflected Nazi ideology. The concept of the "Dauerwald" was promoted, best translated as the "perpetual forest", which included concepts such as forest management and protection. Efforts were also made to curb air-pollution.
In practice, the enacted laws and policies met resistance from various ministries that sought to undermine them, and from the priority that the war-effort took to environmental protection. Environmentalism was in the end often sacrificed for the sake of other goals of the state.

World War II

German and Axis allies' conquests (in blue) in Europe during World War II

The "Danzig crisis" peaked in the months after Poland rejected Nazi Germany's initial offer regarding both the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor. After a series of ultimatums, the Germans broke from diplomatic relations and shortly thereafter, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. This led to the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe when on 3 September 1939, the United Kingdom and France both declared war on Germany. The Phony War followed. On 9 April 1940 the Germans struck north against Denmark and Norway, in part to secure the safety of continuing iron ore supplies from Sweden through Norwegian coastal waters. British and French forces landed in Mid- and North Norway, only to be defeated in the ensuing Norwegian campaign. In May, the Phony War ended when despite the protestations of many of his advisors, Hitler took a gamble and sent German forces into France and the Low Countries. The Battle of France was an overwhelming German victory. Later that year, Germany subjected the United Kingdom to heavy bombing during the Battle of Britain, and deliberately bombed civilian areas London in response to a British bombing of Berlin. This may have served two purposes, either as a precursor to Operation Sea Lion or it may have been an effort to dissuade the British populace from continuing to support the war. Regardless, the United Kingdom refused to capitulate and eventually Sea Lion was indefinitely postponed in favor of Operation Barbarossa.
Barbarossa too was briefly postponed while Hitler's attention was diverted to save his failing Italian ally in North Africa and the Balkans. The Afrika Korps arrived in Libya in February of 1941. In what was to be one of many advances in the North African Campaign, the Germans took back much of what the Italians had so recently given up. In April, the Germans then launched an invasion of Yugoslavia. This was followed by the Battle of Greece and the Battle of Crete. But, by the time North Africa and the Balkans were subdued, February, March, April, and May were lost. Because of the diversions in North Africa and the Balkans, the Germans were not able to launch Barbarossa until late in June.

German bomber over London in 1940

Before and after the German attempt to take Britain, Germany's navy, the ''Kriegsmarine'', was raiding Allied convoys in the Atlantic Ocean which were sending Britain needed supplies from the United States, Canada, and British colonies. British forces were forced to spread out to protect their convoys from submarine attacks by German U-Boats, as well as stopping surface raiders. The British successfully repelled a number German surface raiding attempts during the war, the two most famous battles with surface raiders included one the battle with the pocket battleship ''Admiral Graf Spee'' and a British cruiser squadron in 1939, which set off a political controversy when the German ship attempted to take refuge in the neutral port of Montevideo, later being forced out and destroyed by her crew to avoid capture. The other was in 1941 with the German battleship ''Bismarck'', Germany's largest and most powerful warship that sunk Britain's largest warship, the battlecruiser ''Hood'', ''Bismarck'' was then pursued and sunk by British naval forces shortly afterward. Attacks by U-boats however, proved to be very successful and the most serious in damaging supply lines to Britain. Over time, the Allies developed improved defence tactics and new escorts that managed to reduce the numbers of merchant ships sunk. The German war machine managed to keep up with the steady losses of U-Boats because of their simple designs which allowed the U-Boats to be mass-produced and still remain a threat to the Allies throughout the war.
Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 and on the eve of the invasion, Hitler's former deputy, Rudolf Hess, attempted to negotiate terms of peace with the United Kingdom in an unofficial private meeting after crash-landing in Scotland. These attempts failed and he was arrested.
By late 1941, Germany and her allies controlled almost all of mainland and Baltic Europe with the exception of neutral Switzerland, Sweden, Spain (debated whether it was an Axis ally), Portugal (debated), Liechtenstein, Andorra, Vatican City (arguably an Italian dependent state), and Monaco. On the eastern front, the German Army was at the gates of Moscow and engaged in a long winter war with the Red Army. Eventually the German army was forced out of Moscow, but held much of the Baltic territories spanning to the Black Sea.
Nazi Germany declared war on the United States on 11 December, 1941, four days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. This allowed German submarines in the Atlantic to fight US convoys that had been supporting the United Kingdom and although Nazi hubris is often cited, Hitler presumably sought the further support of Japan. He was convinced of the United States' aggressive intentions following the leaking of Rainbow Five and hearing of the foreboding content of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor speech. Before then, Germany had practiced its own policy of appeasement, taking drastic precautions in order to avoid the United States' entry into the war.

A member of ''Einsatzgruppe D'' murders a Jew who is kneeling before a filled mass grave in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, in 1942. The back of the photo is inscribed "The last Jew in Vinnista"

The persecution of minorities and "undesirables" continued both in Germany and the occupied countries. From 1941 onward, Jews were required to wear a yellow badge in public and most were transferred to ghettos, where they remained isolated from the rest of the population. In January 1942, at the Wannsee Conference and under the supervision of Reinhard Heydrich, a plan for the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (''Endlösung der Judenfrage'') in Europe was designed. From then until the end of the war some six million Jews and many others, including homosexuals, Slavs, and political prisoners, were systematically killed. In addition, more than ten million people were put into forced labor. This genocide is called the Holocaust in English and the ''Shoah'' in Hebrew. Thousands were shipped daily to extermination camps (''Vernichtungslager'', sometimes called "death factories") and concentration camps (''Konzentrationslager'', ''KZ''), some of which were originally detention centers but later converted into death camps for the purpose of killing their inmates.
Parallel to the Holocaust, the Nazis conducted a ruthless program of conquest and exploitation over the captured Soviet and Polish territories and their Slavic populations as part of their ''Generalplan Ost''. According to estimates, 20 million Soviet civilians, three million non-Jewish Poles, and seven million Red Army soldiers died under Nazi maltreatment in what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War. The Nazis' plan was to extend German ''Lebensraum'' ("living space") eastward, a foreseen consequence of the war in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, said by the Nazis to have been waged in order "to defend Western Civilization against Bolshevism". Due to many of the atrocities suffered under Stalin, the Nazi message was interpreted by many to be legitimate. Many Ukrainians, Balts and other disillusioned Soviets fought, or at least expected to fight, with the Germans, not to mention other Europeans enlisted in numerous Schutzstaffel divisions.

American soldiers cross the Siegfried Line, the border between Germany and France.

As the Soviet war economy recovered despite the loss of industrial territory to the German occupiers, the Red Army put up a strong front against the German army. By 1943 the Soviets had defeated the Germans at Stalingrad and began the push westward, winning the tank battle at Kursk-Orel in July.
From 1942 on, the Western Allies stepped up bombing raids and began plans to land on German-occupied territory. A great controversy concerning Allied tactics, were the Allied bombings of German cities, which resulted in the complete destruction of the cities of Cologne and Dresden as well as others. These bombings resulted in numerous civilian casualties and severe hardship for the survivors living amid the destroyed infrastructure. The invasion of Italy as well as the collapse of the Fascist regime there, caused German forces to be spread thin to fight the two fronts. The German Army was pushed back to the borders of Poland by February 1944, following the great success of Operation Bagration. The Allies opened a Western Front in June 1944 at Normandy, a year and a half after the Soviets turned the tide on the Eastern Front. With a three front campaign, depleting oil and supply lines, and constant bombing by the Allies, German occupied territory was slowly taken by the Allies. As the Red army neared East Prussia, German civilians began to flee from East Prussia, West Prussia and Silesia ''en masse'' westward, fearing persecution by Soviet soldiers. Though there were atrocities committed by the western allies, many Germans believed that they would be safer under occupation by the Western Allied forces, than under the Soviet forces, of whom both real and propaganda-told stories of atrocities terrified the German populations of Soviet occupation.

More than 5.5 million German soldiers died in World War II. German paratroopers (''Fallschirmjäger'') killed by American soldiers are stacked in a cart

By early 1945, Soviet forces surrounded Berlin, American and British forces had taken most of western Germany and Soviet troops moving westward met Allied troops moving eastward at Torgau at the Elbe on April 26 1945 (Cohen). With Berlin under siege, Hitler and other key members of the Nazi regime were forced to live in the armoured underground ''Führerbunker'' while the upper terrain of Berlin was constantly shelled by the Red Army. In the underground bunker Hitler grew increasingly isolated and detached from reality and increasingly exhibited signs of mental illness. Berlin was eventually surrounded and outward communications between Berlin and the rest of Germany were cut off. Despite evident total defeat, Hitler refused to relinquish his power or surrender. With no communications coming out of Berlin, Hermann Göring sent an ultimatum to Berlin take over the Nazi regime in April, if no communications the ultimatum was not responded to, in which Hitler would have been deemed to be incapacitated as leader. Upon receiving the message, Hitler angrily ordered Göring's immediate arrest, and had a plane deliver the message to Goering in Bavaria. Later, ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himmler in northern Germany began communicating with the western Allies about negotiating peace. Hitler once again reacted violently to Himmler's attempts to seek peace and ordered both his arrest and execution. With no intent by Hitler to surrender, intense street fighting continued in the war-torn ruins of Berlin between remnant German army forces, Hitler Youth, and the Waffen-SS against the Red Army. This battle was known as the Battle of Berlin. The German forces by this time were severely depleted, large numbers of German children and the elderly were forced into conscription by the Nazis to fight against the Red Army in the remaining pockets of territory not controlled by the Red Army in Berlin.

The Soviet Red Army takes the Reichstag in the ruins of Berlin in the last days of the war.

On April 30 1945, as the Battle for Berlin raged and the city was being over-run by Soviet forces, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker. Two days later, on 2 May, German General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov.
Hitler was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reich President and Dr. Joseph Goebbels as Reich Chancellor. No one was not to replace Hitler as the Führer which Hitler abolished in his will. However, Goebbels committed suicide in the Fuhrerbunker a day after assuming office. The caretaker government Dönitz established near the Danish border unsuccessfully sought a separate peace with the Western Allies. On 4 May–8 May 1945, the remaining German armed forces throughout Europe surrendered unconditionally (German Instrument of Surrender, 1945). This was the end of Nazi Germany.
With the creation of the Allied Control Council on 5 July 1945, the four Allied powers "assume[d] supreme authority with respect to Germany" (Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany, US Department of State, Treaties and Other International Acts Series, No. 1520).

The post-war period

Main articles: Aftermath of World War II, Effects of World War II, Consequences of German Nazism, Nuremberg Trials, Expulsion of Germans after World War II, The industrial plans for Germany

Nuremberg lies in hazy ruins shortly after the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces. Like many German cities, it had been devastated by Allied carpet bombing

. Hitler's Germany caused Europe much destruction, over 50 million people were killed for his idea of a "Thousand Year Reich".
The Potsdam Conference in August 1945 created arrangements and outline for new government for the post-war Germany as well as war reparations and resettlement. All German annexations in Europe after 1937, such as the Sudetenland, were reversed, and in addition Germany's eastern border was shifted westwards to the Oder-Neisse line, effectively reducing Germany in size by approximately 25% compared to her 1937 border. The territories east of the new border comprised East Prussia, Silesia, West Prussia, two thirds of Pomerania, and even parts of Brandenburg. These areas were mainly agricultural, with the exception of Upper Silesia which was the second largest center of German heavy industry. France took control of a large part of Germany's remaining coal deposits. Virtually all Germans in Central Europe outside of the new eastern borders of Germany and Austria were subsequently over a period of several years expelled, affecting about seventeen million ethnic Germans. Most casualty estimates of this expulsion range between 1 to 2 million dead. The French, U.S. and British occupation zones later became West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany), while the Soviet zone became the communist East Germany (the German Democratic Republic, excluding sections of Berlin). The initial repressive occupation policy in Germany by the Western Allies was reversed after a few years when the Cold War made the Germans important as allies against communism. West Germany recovered economically by the 1960s, being called the economic miracle (German term ''Wirtschaftswunder''), mainly due to the currency reform of 1948 which replaced the Reichsmark with the Deutsche Mark as legal tender, halting rampant inflation, but also to a minor degree helped by economic aid (in the form of loans) through the Marshall Plan which was extended to also include West Germany. West German recovery was upheld thanks to fiscal policy and intense labor, eventually leading to labor shortages. Allied dismantling of West German industry was finally halted in 1951, and in 1952 West Germany joined the European Coal and Steel Community. In 1955 the military occupation of West Germany was ended. East Germany recovered at a slower pace under communism until 1990, due to reparations paid to the Soviet Union and the effects of the centrally planned economy. Germany regained full sovereignty in 1991.

The US army blows up the swastika atop the Nazi Party rally grounds in Nuremberg

After the war, surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial by an Allied tribunal at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. A minority were sentenced to death and executed, but a number were jailed and then released by the mid-1950s due to poor health and old age. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, some renewed efforts were made in West Germany to take those who were directly responsible for "crimes against humanity" to court (e.g., Auschwitz trials). However, many of the less prominent leaders continued to live well into the 1980s and 1990s.
The victorious Allies outlawed the Nazi Party, its subsidiary organizations, and most symbols and emblems (including the swastika in most manifestations) throughout Germany and Austria; this prohibition remains in force to the present (2007). The end of Nazi Germany also saw the rise of unpopularity of related aggressive nationalism in Germany such as Pan-Germanism and the ''Völkisch'' movement which had previously been significant political ideas in Germany and in Europe prior to the Second World War, those that remain are largely at present, fringe movements. In all non-fascist European countries legal purges were established to punish the members of the former Nazi and Fascist parties. Even there, however, some of the former leaders found ways to accommodate themselves under the new circumstances.

Nuremberg Trials

Wartime poster of the United Nations, displaying international unity against Nazism and fascism.

The response to numerous crimes discovered to be committed by Nazi Germany, fostered a revival in both the western and eastern blocs of internationalism resulting in the creation of the United Nations (UN). One of the UN's first objectives was establishing a series of war crimes tribunals to convict Nazi officials, called the Nuremberg Trials, named after where the trials were held, in the Nazis' former political stronghold of Nuremberg, Bavaria. The first major and most well-known Nuremberg trial was officially called the ''Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal (IMT).'' This trial involved twenty-four key Nazi officials including Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer, Karl Dönitz, Hans Frank, and Julius Streicher. The trial found many of the accused to be guilty and many were sentenced to death by hanging. A few officials managed to avoid being executed, including Göring, who was scheduled to be hanged, but committed suicide by ingesting a cyanide tablet before he could be hung; Hess, a formerly close confidant to Hitler, was sentenced to life in prison and stayed in Spandau prison until his death in 1987; Speer, the state architect and later armaments minister, served twenty years despite his use of slave labour in projects; Konstantin von Neurath, a Third Reich cabinet minister who was in office prior to the Nazi regime; and another minister who also served in the pre-Nazi government, economist Hjalmar Schacht.
Some accused the Nuremberg Trials to be a form of "victor's justice", in that no similar action was taken to punish the war crimes and crimes against humanity of the victors, especially those of the Soviet Union during the World War II.

Organization of the Third Reich

The leaders of Nazi Germany created a large number of different organizations for the purpose of helping them stay in power. They rearmed and strengthened the military, set up an extensive state security apparatus and created their own personal party army, the ''Waffen-SS''.
The government of Nazi Germany gradually formed into a process known as "working towards the Führer". Although Hitler was the undisputable ideological force behind the Third Reich, as leader of the country, he was very lazy, especially in the pre-war years, spending much of his time relaxing in his mountain retreat. Because of this, a system of government was formed whereby leading Nazi officials were forced to interpret Hitler's random speeches and rants on government policies, often based on chance overhearings, or off-the-cuff remarks, and turn them into legislation. This created an elite of ambitious Nazis, all of whom were desperate to win the approval of the Führer, and all of whom despised one another. Any government member could take one of Hitler's comments, and turn it into a new law, of which Hitler would casually either approve or disapprove when he finally heard about it. This became known as "working towards the Führer", as the government was not a co-ordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of individuals each trying to gain more power and influence over the Führer. This often made government very convoluted and divided, especially with Hitler's vague policy of creating a multitute of often very similar posts. The process allowed more unscrupulous and ambitious Nazis to get away with implementing the more radical and extreme elements of Hitler's ideology, such as anti-Semitism, and in doing so win political favour. Protected by Goebbels' extremely effective propaganda machine, which portrayed the government as a dedicated, dutiful and efficient outfit, the dog-eat-dog competition, and chaotic legislation was allowed to escalate out of control. Historical opinion is divided between "intentionalists" who believe that Hitler created this system as the only means of ensuring both the total loyalty and dedication of his supporters, and the complete impossibility of a conspiracy; and the "structuralists" who believe that the system evolved by itself, and was a serious limitation on Hitler's supposedly totalitarian power.
Through staffing of most government positions with Nazi Party members, by 1935 the German national government and the Nazi Party had become virtually one and the same. By 1938, through the policy of ''Gleichschaltung'', local and state governments lost all legislative power and answered administratively to Nazi Party leaders, known as Gauleiters, who governed ''Gaue'' and ''Reichsgaue''.
The organization of the Nazi state, as of 1944, was as follows:

Cabinet and national authorities

★ Office of the Reich Chancellery (Hans Lammers)

★ Office of the Party Chancellery (Martin Bormann)

★ Office of the Presidential Chancellery (Otto Meissner)

★ Privy Cabinet Council (Konstantin von Neurath)

★ Chancellery of the Führer (Philip Bouhler)

Reich offices

★ Office of the Four-Year Plan (Hermann Göring)

★ Office of the Reich Master Forester (Hermann Göring)

★ Office of the Inspector for Highways

★ Office of the President of the Reich Bank

★ Reich Youth Office

★ Reich Treasury Office

★ General Inspector of the Reich Capital

★ Office of the Councillor for the Capital of the Movement (Munich, Bavaria)

Reich ministries

★ Reich Foreign Ministry (Joachim von Ribbentrop)

★ Reich Interior Ministry (Wilhelm Frick, Heinrich Himmler)

★ Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Joseph Goebbels)

★ Reich Ministry of Aviation (Hermann Göring)

★ Reich Ministry of Finance (Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk)

★ Reich Ministry of Justice (Otto Thierack)

★ Reich Economics Ministry (Walther Funk)

★ Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture (R. Walther Darre)

★ Reich Labor Ministry (Franz Seldte)

★ Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and Public Instruction (Bernhard Rust)

★ Reich Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs (Hanns Kerrl)

★ Reich Transportation Ministry (Julius Dorpmüller)

★ Reich Postal Ministry (Wilhelm Ohnesorge)

★ Reich Ministry for Weapons, Munitions, and Armament (Fritz Todt, Albert Speer)

★ Reich Ministers without Portfolio (Konstantin von Neurath, Hans Frank, Hjalmar Schacht, Arthur Seyss-Inquart)

Occupation authorities

★ Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Alfred Rosenberg)

★ General Government of Poland (Hans Frank)

★ Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (Konstantin von Neurath)

★
★ Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (Reinhard Heydrich)

★ Office of the Military Governor of France

Legislative branch

★ Reichstag

★
★ President of the Reichstag (Hermann Göring)

★ Reichsrat (disbanded February 14, 1934)
It has to be considered that there is little use talking about a ''legislative branch'' in a totalitarian state, where there is no separation of powers. For example, since 1933 the Reichsregierung (Reich cabinet) was enabled to enact Reichsgesetze (statute law) without respect to the constitution from 1919.

Judicial system

Most of the judicial structures and legal codes of the Weimar Republic remained in use during the Third Reich, but significant changes within the judicial codes occurred, as well as significant changes in court rulings. Most human rights of the constitution of the Weimar Republic were disabled by several ''Reichsgesetze'' (Reich's laws). Several minorities such as the Jews, opposition politicians and prisoners of war were deprived of most of their rights and responsibilities. The Plan to pass a ''Volksstrafgesetzbuch'' (people's code of criminal justice) arose soon after 1933, but didn't come into reality until the end of WWII.
As a new type of court, the ''Volksgerichtshof'' (people's court) was established in 1934, only dealing with cases of political importance. From 1934 to September 1944, a total of 5,375 death sentences were spoken by the court. Not included in this numbers are the death sentences from July 20, 1944 until April 1945, which are estimated at 2,000. Its most prominent jurist was Roland Freisler, who headed the court from August 1942 to February 1945.
After the war, some surviving jurists were tried, convicted, and sentenced as war criminals.

Military organizations

★ ''Wehrmacht'' (Defence Force)

★
★ ''Heer'' (Army)

★
★ ''Kriegsmarine'' (Navy)

★
★ ''Luftwaffe'' (Air force)

Paramilitary organizations

★ ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA)

★ ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS)

★
★ ''Allgemeine SS''

★
★ ''Germanische SS

★
★ ''Waffen-SS''

★ ''Deutscher Volkssturm''

★ ''Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrerkorps'' (NSKK)

★ ''Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps'' (NSFK)

National police

Reich Central Security Office (''RSHA — Reichssicherheitshauptamt'') Ernst Kaltenbrunner

★ Order Police (''Ordnungspolizei'' (''Orpo''))

★
★ ''Schutzpolizei'' (Safety Police (''Schupo''))

★
★ ''Gendarmerie'' (Rural Police)

★
★ ''Gemeindepolizei'' (Local Police)

★ Security Police (''Sicherheitspolizei'' (''Sipo''))

★
★ ''Geheime Staatspolizei'' (''Gestapo'')

★
★ ''Reichskriminalpolizei'' (''Kripo'')

★
★ ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD)

Political organizations

★ ''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (abbreviated ''NSDAP'') — National Socialist German Workers Party (also known as "Nazi Party")

★ Youth organizations

★
★ ''Hitler-Jugend (HJ)'' — Hitler-youth (for boys and young men); Baldur von Schirach

★
★ ''Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM)'' (for girls and young women)

★
★ ''Deutsches Jungvolk'' (for very young boys and girls ages 6-8)

★ ''NS-Frauenschaft (NSF)'' — National Socialist Women's League; Gertrud Scholtz-Klink

★ Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF)

★ Nationalsozialistischer Reichskriegerbund (NS-RKB)

Service organizations

★ ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'' (State Railway)

★ ''Reichspost'' (State Postal Service)

★ ''Deutsches Rotes Kreuz'' (German Red Cross)

Religious organizations

★ ''Deutsche Christen'' (German Christians)

★ ''Protestantische Reichskirche'' (Protestant Reich Church)

Academic organizations

★ ''Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Dozentenbund (NSDDB)'' — National Socialist German University Teachers' League

★ ''Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (NSDStB)'' — National Socialist German Students' League

Prominent persons in Nazi Germany

For a listing of Hitler's cabinet, ''see'': Hitler's Cabinet, January 1933 – April 1945

Nazi Party and Nazi government leaders and officials

★ Artur Axmann — Reich Youth Leader (successor of Baldur von Schirach in 1940)

★ Ernst Wilhelm Bohle — Under-Secretary of State, Head of the NSDAP Foreign Organisation (1933-1945)

★ Martin Bormann — Head of the Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and Private Secretary to Adolf Hitler

★ Karl Brandt — Reich Commissioner of Health and Sanitation

★ Alois Brunner — SS Lieutenant Colonel and Adolf Eichmann’s most important assistant

★ Otto Dietrich — Under-Secretary of State, Reich Chief of the Press

★ Adolf Eichmann — recording secretary at the Wannsee Conference, facilitator of the Final Solution

★ Fatos Von Pristina — Reich Ministry Of Albanian Territory

★ Karl Fiehler — Nazi Lord Mayor of Munich and Head of the unity organization for local politics

★ Hans Frank — Minister, Head of the German Law Academy

★ Roland Freisler — Under-Secretary of State at the Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the ''Volksgerichtshof''

★ Wilhelm Frick — Minister of the Interior

★ Hans Fritzsche — senior official of the Reich Ministry for Propaganda

★ Walter Funk — Minister of Industries

★ Joseph Goebbels — Minister of Propaganda, became Chancellor of Germany for one day following Hitler's death, was named his immediate successor as Reich Chancellor by Hitler himself.

★ Hermann Göring — ''Reichsmarschall'' and Minister-President of Prussia. Air Minister. Minister of the Interior. President of the Reichstag.

★ Franz Gürtner — Minister of Justice

★ Karl Hanke — Under-Secretary of State, Propaganda Ministry

★ Rudolf Hess — the ''Führer's'' Deputy

★ Reinhard Heydrich — Head of Reich Main Security Office and Protector of Bohemia and Moravia

★ Konstantin Hierl — Head of the Reich Labour Service

★ Heinrich Himmler — Reich Leader SS

★ 'Adolf Hitler' — ''Führer'' and Reich Chancellor

★ Ernst Kaltenbrunner — Chief of the RSHA (1943-1945)

★ Hanns Kerrl — Reich Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs (1933–1941)

★ Karl Otto Koch — SS Colonel and commandant of the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Majdanek

★ Hans Lammers — Head of the Reich Chancellery

★ Herbert Lange — SS Major, chief inspector of the Posen State Police Headquarters

★ Robert Ley — Leader of the German Labour Front

★ Viktor Lutze — Chief of Staff of the SA (1934–1943)

★ Otto Meissner — Head of the Reich President’s Office

★ Alfred Meyer — Under-Secretary of State at the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories

★ Konstantin von Neurath — Head of the Secret Cabinet

★ Hans Nieland — Head of the NSDAP Foreign Organisation (1931-1933) and Lord Mayor of Dresden (1940-1945)

★ Erich Priebke — SS Captain, participated in the massacres at the Ardeatine caves near Rome

★ Joachim von Ribbentrop — Foreign Minister (1938–1945)

★ Ernst Röhm — Chief of Staff of the SA (1931–1934)

★ Alfred Rosenberg — ideologist of National Socialism, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories

★ Bernhard Rust — Minister of Education

★ Carl Schmitt — expert on constitutional law and political philosopher, who affected Nazism with his anti-Semite and antidemocratic theses

★ Fritz Sauckel — General Plenipotentiary for the Employment of Labour (1942–1945)

★ Baldur von Schirach — Leader of the ''Hitlerjugend'' (Nazi Youth Organisation), Gauleiter of Vienna

★ Franz Seldte — Reich Minister of Labor (1933–1945)

★ Arthur Seyß-Inquart — ''Reichsstatthalter'' in Austria, Commissioner for the Occupied Netherlands

★ Albert Speer — First Architect, Minister for Armament from 1942

★ Julius Streicher — Gauleiter of Franconia (1923-1940), publisher of ''Der Stürmer''

★ Josef Terboven — ''Reichskommissar'' for Norway (1940–1945)

★ Fritz Todt — Inspector General for German Roadways, Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions (1940-1942)

★ Hjalmar Schacht — Minister, Governor of the Central Bank (''Reichsbank'') (1933-1939)

★ Gertrud Scholtz-Klink — Reich Leader of Women (1934-1945)

★ Hans von Tschammer und Osten — Under-Secretary of State and Reich Sports Leader (1933-1943)

SS personnel

★ See: List of SS Personnel

Military

★ Karl Dönitz — Commander of the German U-Boat force, later the German Navy. Was named as Hitler's successor as Reich president (not to be confused with Chancellor of Germany).

★ Gerd von Rundstedt

★ Erwin Rommel

★ Wilhelm Keitel

★ Claus von Stauffenberg

★ Wilhelm Canaris

★ Alfred Jodl

★ Erich Raeder

★ Robert Ritter von Greim

★ Albert Kesselring

★ Erich von Manstein

★ Heinz Guderian

Footnotes

1. ''Statistisches Bundesamt'' (Federal Statistical Office), ''Statistisches Jahrbuch 2006 für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland'', p. 34.
2. Germany — Country Study
3. Bischof, Günter, “The Historical Roots of a Special Relationship: Austro-German Relations Between Hegemony and Equality”. In Unequal Partners, ed. Harald von Riekhoff and Hanspeter Neuhold. San Francisco: Westview Press, 1993
4. Hitler's Plan, Dac.neu.edu
5. ess.uwe.ac.uk
6. Richard Evans, ''The Coming of the Third Reich'' (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), 441.
7. ushmm.org
8. Nazi Medicine and Public Health Policy Robert N. Proctor, Dimensions: A Journal of Holocaust Studies.
9. Review of "The Nazi War on Cancer" Canadian Journal of History, Aug 2001 by Ian Dowbiggin
10. spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
11. Perry Biddiscombe "Dangerous Liaisons: The Anti-Fraternization Movement in the U.S. Occupation Zones of Germany and Austria, 1945-1948", Journal of Social History 34.3 (2001) 611-647
12. Hartmut M Hanauske-Abel: ''"Not a slippery slope or sudden subversion: German medicine and National Socialism in 1933"'' BMJ 1996;313:1453-1463 (7 December)
13. kaltio.fi
14. econ161.berkeley.edu
15. The visual arts were strictly monitored and traditional, focusing on exemplifying Germanic themes, racial purity, militarism, heroism, power, strength, and obedience. Modern abstract art and avant-garde art was removed from museums and put on special display as ''"degenerate art"'', where it was to be ridiculed. In one notable example on 31 March

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