question: Why is it that the germans during WW2 are referred to as the "Third Reich". Was there a first and second one?
comment: "Reich" is a German word that translates literally as "realm". "Kaiserreich" literally means "emperor-realm", or "empire." The first and second German Empires (by the reckoning of the Nazis at least) were the Holy Roman Empire of 962–1806 and the German Empire of 1871–1918. They fancied themselves the third "reich" as part of their ideology involved re-uniting the Germanic peoples under one state.
passages: A 1923 book entitled "Das Dritte Reich" by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck 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. 
  
  Section::::End of World War II.
   The Nazi regime was sometimes contemporaneously called the "Third Reich" in common language, counting the Holy Roman Empire as the first and the 1871 German Empire as the second, and ignoring the Weimar Republic, but the use of this term is mostly retrospective.
   BULLET::::- "Drittes Reich" – Third Reich or "Third Realm". Arthur Moeller van den Bruck coined this term for his book "Das Dritte Reich" published in 1923. The term "Third Reich" was used by Nazi propaganda to legitimize the Nazi government as a successor to the "First Reich" (the Holy Roman Empire), 800–1806 beginning with Charlemagne, and the "Second Reich" (the German Empire, 1871–1918).
   The Nazis sought to legitimize their power historiographically by portraying their ascendancy to rule as the direct continuation of an ancient German past. They adopted the term "" ("Third Empire" – usually rendered in English in the partial translation "the Third "Reich""), first used in a 1923 book entitled "Das Dritte Reich" by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, that counted the medieval Holy Roman Empire (which nominally survived until the 19th century) as the first and the 1871–1918 monarchy as the second, which was then to be followed by a "reinvigorated" third one. This ignored the previous 1918–1933 Weimar period, which the Nazis denounced as a historical aberration, contemptuously referring to it as "the System". In the summer of 1939 the Nazis themselves actually banned the continued use of the term in the press, ordering it to use expressions such as "nationalsozialistisches Deutschland" ("National Socialist Germany"), "Großdeutsches Reich" ("Greater German Reich"), or simply "Deutsches Reich" (German Reich) to refer to the German state instead. It was Adolf Hitler's personal desire that "Großdeutsches Reich" and "nationalsozialistischer Staat" ("[the] National Socialist State") would be used in place of "Drittes Reich". "Reichskanzlei Berchtesgaden" ("Reich Chancellery Berchtesgaden"), another nickname of the regime (named after the eponymous town located in the vicinity of Hitler's mountain residence where he spent much of his time in office) was also banned at the same time, despite the fact that a sub-section of the Chancellery was in fact installed there to serve Hitler's needs.
   Although the term "Third Reich" is still commonly used to refer to the Nazi dictatorship, historians avoid the terms "First Reich" and "Second Reich", which are seldom found outside Nazi propaganda. During and following the "Anschluss" (annexation) of Austria in 1938, Nazi propaganda also used the political slogan "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" ("One people, one "Reich", one leader"), in order to enforce pan-German sentiment. The term ' ("old Reich"; cf. French "ancien regime" for monarchical France) is sometimes used to refer to the Holy Roman Empire. The term ' was also used after the Anschluss to denote Germany with its pre-1938 post-World War I borders. Another name that was popular during this period was the term "Tausendjähriges Reich" ("Thousand-Year Reich"), the millennial connotations of which suggested that Nazi Germany would last for a thousand years.
   Fourth Reich
  
  The Fourth Reich () is a hypothetical future German Reich that is the successor to the Third Reich (1933–1945).
  
  Section::::Origin.
   Section::::History.:Third Reich.
   BULLET::::- "Drittes Zeitalter" – The "Three Ages" – a philosophy of history promulgated in 1923 by the German author Arthur Moeller van den Bruck in his book "Das Dritte Reich", based on an update of the "Three Ages" philosophy of the medieval philosopher Joachim of Fiore, which the Nazis used to justify their rule. According to Moeller's update of the ideas of Fiore, the First Reich was the "Age of the Father", the Second Reich was the "Age of the Son", and there will in the future be established under a strong leader a "Third Reich" which will be the "Age of the Holy Ghost" in which all Germans will live in a Utopia in peace and harmony with each other.
   BULLET::::- the early medieval Frankish Realm (Francia) and Carolingian Empire (the ' and ');
  
  BULLET::::- the Holy Roman Empire ("), which lasted from the coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in 800, until 1806, when it was dissolved during the Napoleonic Wars;
  
  BULLET::::- the German Empire (' or '), which lasted from the unification of Germany in 1871 until its collapse after World War I, during the German Revolution of 1918–1919;
  
  BULLET::::- the Weimar Republic of 1919–1933 continued to use " as its official name;
   BULLET::::- Nazi Germany, the state often referred to as the "Third Reich", which lasted from the Machtergreifung in 1933 until the end of World War II in Europe in 1945.
  
  The term "Third Reich" was adopted by the Nazis as propaganda to legitimize their government as a successor to the retroactively renamed "First" and "Second" Reichs. The terms "First Reich" and "Second Reich" are not used by historians, whilst the term "Fourth Reich" is used mainly in fiction and for political humour; however, it is also used by those who subscribe to the belief of Neo-Nazism.
  
  Section::::Etymology.
   Nazi Germany used the term "Drittes Reich" (meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire"), as successor of the first realm (HRE) and the second realm (the German Empire). In 1939, however, in a circular not intended for publication, further use of the term "Third Reich" was prohibited.
  
  Section::::Successor to the Holy Roman Empire.:Austrian claims.
  
  After the Holy Roman Empire was dismantled in 1806, the Austrian Empire sought to lay claim as the heir of the Holy Roman Empire as Austria's Habsburgs attempted to unite Germany under their rule.
   Based on pamphlets published by David Myatt in the early 1990s, many neo-Nazis came to believe that the rise of the Fourth Reich in Germany would pave the way for the establishment of the "Western Imperium", a pan-Aryan world empire encompassing all land populated by predominantly European-descended peoples (i.e., Europe, Russia, Anglo-America, Australia, New Zealand, and White South Africa).
  
  Section::::Usage to indicate German influence in the European Union.
   The term "Third Reich" was coined by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck in his 1923 book "Das Dritte Reich". He defined the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) as the "First Reich", and the German Empire (1871–1918) as the "Second Reich", while the "Third Reich" was an ideal state including all German peoples, including Austria. In the modern context the term refers to Nazi Germany. It was used by the Nazis to legitimize their regime as a successor state to the retroactively-renamed First and Second Reichs.
   Section::::Name.
  
  The official name of the state was "Deutsches Reich" from 1933 to 1943 and "Großdeutsches Reich" from 1943 to 1945, while common English terms are "Nazi Germany" and "Third Reich". The latter, adopted by Nazi propaganda as "Drittes Reich", was first used in "Das Dritte Reich", a 1923 book by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck. The book counted the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) as the first Reich and the German Empire (1871–1918) as the second.
  
  Section::::Background.
   BULLET::::- "Kommandantur" – German for military headquarters. By metonymy, during the war it designated in occupied countries both the commands themselves, the buildings where they were located (often in castles or luxury hotels or other grand buildings), and the territories of different administrative levels under their control.
  
  BULLET::::- "Kontinentalimperium" – German World War II aim for achieving continental hegemony by territorial expansion into Eastern Europe. Contrast "Kolonialimperium", the exclusive aim for an overseas imperial domain.
   Section::::Development history.
   Section::::Usage throughout German history.:During the Nazi period.
   Apart from official documents, post-World War I Germany was referred to as the "German Reich" — never as the "German Empire" — for example, by British politicians—and the word "Reich" was used untranslated by Allied prosecutors throughout the Nuremberg Trials, with "German Empire" only used to describe Germany before it became a federal republic in 1918.
  
  Section::::Reich as "national people" versus Reich as "state territory".
   BULLET::::- 10 May 1940 – 1 June 1940 – Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt (b. 1875 – d. 1953) and Fedor von Bock (b. 1880 – d. 1945)
  
  BULLET::::- 1 June 1940 – 18 July 1944 – Alexander Freiherr von Falkenhausen (b. 1878 – d. 1966)
  
  This situation continued until July 1944, when a "Reichskommissar für Belgien-Nordfrankreich" was appointed: 
  
  BULLET::::- 18 July 1944 – January 1945 – Joseph Grohé (b. 1902 – d. 1988) NSDAP
   To refer to the entire period 1871–1945, the partially translated "German Reich" () is applied by historians in formal contexts, although, in common English usage, this state was and is known simply as Germany, the English term "German Empire" being 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:
  
  BULLET::::- German Empire (1871–1918)
  
  BULLET::::- Weimar Republic (1918–1933)
  
  BULLET::::- Nazi Germany (1933–1945)
   Section::::The difference between "Reich" and "Empire".
   Section::::European countries.:West Europe.:Luxembourg.
   Section::::Pre-war role.
   After 1918 "Reich" was usually not translated as "Empire" in English-speaking countries, and the title was instead simply used in its original German. During the Weimar Republic the term ' and the prefix ' referred not to the idea of empire but rather to the institutions, officials, affairs etc. of the whole country as opposed to those of one of its constituent federal states ('), in the same way that the terms ' (federation) and "" (federal) are used in Germany today, and comparable to "The Crown" in Commonwealth countries and "The Union" in the United States.
   In August 1934, after Hindenburg died, Hitler merged the offices of Reichsprasident and Reichskanzler, and declared himself "Führer and Reichskanzler". War Minister Werner von Blomberg issued a new wording which became known as Führereid, the "Hitler oath":
  
  Now "Volk and Fatherland" had been superseded by the person of Hitler himself, who would be Führer and supreme commander. In addition, the obedience was now to be unconditional.
  
  In 1935, the "Reichswehr" was renamed "Wehrmacht".
  
  Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Ceremonial oath of the Bundeswehr
  
  Section::::References.
  
  BULLET::::- Gesetz über die Vereidigung der Beamten und der Soldaten der Wehrmacht
  
  BULLET::::- Wehrpflicht
  