3rd Reich

[ilovestrategy]

I have a question for you guys since your knowledge is a lot better than mine.

I'm reading John Toland's Adolf Hitler and there is one thing I don't get. Was there a 1st and 2nd Reich I don't know about?
If not, why is the 3rd Reich called just that?

[Arsan]

Sure there were

The First Reich was the Holy Roman Empire which included lots of little german states and principates under the more or less nominal control or an Emperor elected by the princes of the different states. It went from the early middle ages (S. X??) until Napoleon dissolved it after defeating Prussia (1806)
The Second Reich started with the unification of Germany after the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and ended after the defeat of Germany on the WW1.
Google or the wiki can surely give you more details than me [:D]

Cheers

[Phatguy]

1st reich was the HRE as far as I recall.The 2nd reich started during bismarks time and ended in 1918 

[SireChaos]

It´s like the previous posters said.
 
Except that the Holy Roman Empire wasn´t quite what it was cracked up to be. It´s no mistake the place was known as "the Germanies". As the joke goes, the name "Holy Roman Empire" was triple lie, because it wasn´t holy, it wasn´t Roman, and it wasn´t an empire.
 
And the 2nd Reich - simply "Deutsches Reich" or "German Empire" to its inhabitants - did not simply begin in Bismarck´s time, it began because Bismarck created it. Once you´re done with Hitler, you should read up on Bismarck - that guy must have been one of the most capable statesmen of all time, if not THE capable, although in a fairly sociopathic way.

[V22 Osprey]

After the 3rd Riech, I'm afraid of a fourth. [X(]

[Lützow]

Actually First Reich has nothing to do with HRE but got already founded from Heinrich I. (German King, 919-936). That's why Hitler called his Empire 'Tausendjähriges' (thousand years) Reich.

Stay tuned for our fourth attempt. [:D]

[Greybriar]

The posts about a fourth Reich reminded me of an experience my neighbor shared with me quite awhile ago. He was stationed in Germany a number of years after the end of World War II, but before the Berlin wall came down. One day his unit intercepted a German tank formation that was operating outside the area it was authorized in. My neighbor asked the German commanding officer where he thought he was going.

The German officer replied with a grin, "Paris?"

My neighbor found that very amusing and I couldn't help but laugh when he related the incident to me.

[Sewerlobster]

That's laugh out loud funny.

[Yogi the Great]

ORIGINAL: Greybriar


The German officer replied with a grin, "Paris?"

Of course the hardest part would be collecting all the white flags on the way. [:D]

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: Greybriar


The German officer replied with a grin, "Paris?"

That is hilarious! [:D]

Thanks for the answers, now I know! [&o]