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130-534: Reichsbanner ("banner of the realm/empire ") may refer to: the Reichsbanner of the crusader-era, later known as Reichssturmfahne ("imperial war flag") Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold , a 1920s German political organisation Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Reichsbanner . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

260-653: A German "ethnical state", especially after the Napoleonic wars . Ideal for this state was the Holy Roman Empire; the legend arose that Germany were "un-defeated when unified", especially after the Franco-Prussian War ( Deutsch-Französischer Krieg , lit. "German-French war"). Before that, the German question ruptured this "German unity" after the 1848 Revolution before it was achieved, however; Austria-Hungary as

390-529: A central tenet of its policies, and became increasingly aggressive with its territorial demands, threatening war if they were not met. Germany quickly remilitarized, annexed its German-speaking neighbors and invaded Poland , triggering World War II . During the war, the Nazis established a systematic genocide program known as the Holocaust which killed 17 million people, including 6 million Jews (representing 2/3rds of

520-916: A crusading element within German Christendom led to the State of the Teutonic Order along the Baltic coast in what would later become Prussia . In the Investiture Controversy , the German Emperors resisted Catholic Church authority. In the Late Middle Ages , the regional dukes, princes, and bishops gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation within

650-522: 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

780-455: A kingdom), but in a modern sense, the term is used in a much more figurative sense (e.g. Die Hemelse Ryk (the heavenly kingdom, China)), as the sphere under one's control or influencas: As in German, the adjective rijk / ryk also means "rich". History of Germany The concept of Germany as a distinct region in Central Europe can be traced to Julius Caesar , who referred to

910-804: A large Roman force in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest . Consequently, Rome resolved to permanently establish the Rhine/Danube border and refrain from further territorial advance into Germania. By AD 100 the frontier along the Rhine and the Danube and the Limes Germanicus was firmly established. Several Germanic tribes lived under Roman rule south and west of the border, as described in Tacitus 's Germania . Austria formed

1040-458: A limited degree of political autonomy. Beginning with an agreement of the cities of Lübeck and Hamburg , guilds cooperated in order to strengthen and combine their economic assets, like securing trading routes and tax privileges, to control prices and better protect and market their local commodities. Important centers of commerce within the empire, such as Cologne on the Rhine river and Bremen on

1170-790: A limited role in the imperial government. Germany joined the other powers in colonial expansion in Africa and the Pacific . By 1900, Germany was the dominant power on the European continent and its rapidly expanding industry had surpassed Britain 's while provoking it in a naval arms race . Germany led the Central Powers in World War I , but was defeated, partly occupied, forced to pay war reparations , and stripped of its colonies and significant territory along its borders. The German Revolution of 1918–1919 ended

1300-574: A military contingent across and into the territories of the local Germanic tribes. After several days and having made no contact with Germanic troops (who had retreated inland) Caesar returned to the west of the river. By 60 BC, the Suebi tribe under chieftain Ariovistus , had conquered lands of the Gallic Aedui tribe to the west of the Rhine. Consequent plans to populate the region with Germanic settlers from

1430-579: A multinational state could not become part of the new "German empire", and nationality conflicts in Prussia with the Prussian Poles arose ("We can never be Germans – Prussians, every time!"). The advent of national feeling and the movement to create an ethnically German Empire did lead directly to nationalism in 1871. Ethnic minorities declined since the beginning of the modern age; the Polabs , Sorbs and even

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1560-643: A solid economy, the order steadily expanded the Teutonic state during the following 150 years, engaging in several land disputes with its neighbors. Permanent conflicts with the Kingdom of Poland , the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , and the Novgorod Republic , eventually led to military defeat and containment by the mid-15th century. The last Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg converted to Lutheranism in 1525 and turned

1690-517: A still rebellious Gaul. Forts and commercial centers were established along the rivers. Some tribes, such as the Ubii consequently allied with Rome and readily adopted advanced Roman culture. During the 1st century CE Roman legions conducted extended campaigns into Germania magna , the area north of the Upper Danube and east of the Rhine, attempting to subdue the various tribes. Roman ideas of administration,

1820-569: A term for this period of German history. The common contemporary Latin legal term used in documents of the Holy Roman Empire was for a long time regnum ("rule, domain, empire", such as in Regnum Francorum for the Frankish Kingdom ) before imperium was in fact adopted, the latter first attested in 1157, whereas the parallel use of regnum never fell out of use during the Middle Ages. At

1950-765: A tribal confederacy in the Middle Rhine-Weser region, among the territory soon to be called Austrasia (the "eastern land"), the northeastern portion of the future Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks . As a whole, Austrasia comprised parts of present-day France , Germany , Belgium , Luxembourg and the Netherlands . Unlike the Alamanni to their south in Swabia , they absorbed large swaths of former Roman territory as they spread west into Gaul , beginning in 250. Clovis I of

2080-509: A well known pilgrimage destination . By 1288 the city had secured its independence from the archbishop (who relocated to Bonn), and was ruled by its burghers . Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen wrote several influential theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, poems, and arguably the oldest surviving morality play , Ordo Virtutum , while supervising brilliant miniature Illuminations . About 100 years later, Walther von der Vogelweide became

2210-671: Is indenrigs / inrikes / innenriks , meaning domestic. The adjective form of the word, rig in Danish and rik in Swedish/Norwegian, means "rich" like in other Germanic languages. Rijk is the Dutch and ryk the Afrikaans and Frisian equivalent of the German word Reich . In a political sense in the Netherlands and Belgium, the word rijk often connotes a connection with

2340-686: Is obvious that a steady process" occurred during the Nordic Bronze Age , or at the latest during the Pre-Roman Iron Age (Jastorf culture). From their homes in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany the tribes began expanding south, east and west during the 1st century BC, and came into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul , as well as with Iranic , Baltic , and Slavic cultures in Central / Eastern Europe . Factual and detailed knowledge about

2470-461: Is the German name given to the Frankish Kingdom of Charlemagne . Frankenreich came to be used of Western Francia and medieval France after the development of Eastern Francia into the Holy Roman Empire . The German name of France , Frankreich , is a contraction of Frankenreich used in reference to the kingdom of France from the late medieval period. The term Reich was part of

2600-468: Is typically used to designate a kingdom or an empire, especially the Roman Empire . The terms Kaisertum ( German: [ˈkaɪzɐˌtuːm] , "Imperium") and Kaiserreich ("Imperial realm") are used in German to more specifically define an empire ruled by an emperor. Reich is comparable in meaning and development (as well as descending from the same Proto-Indo-European root) to

2730-679: Is used to describe a political or governmental entity. Reich has thus not been used in official terminology since 1945, though it is still found in the name of the Reichstag building , which since 1999 has housed the German federal parliament , the Bundestag . The decision not to rename the Reichstag building was taken only after long debate in the Bundestag; even then, it is described officially as Reichstag – Sitz des Bundestages (Reichstag, seat of

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2860-620: The limes and the Danube frontier. Several large tribes – the Visigoths , Ostrogoths , Vandals , Burgundians , Lombards , Saxons and Franks – migrated and played their part in the decline of the Roman Empire and the transformation of the old Western Roman Empire . By the end of the 4th century the Huns invaded eastern and central Europe, establishing the Hunnic Empire . The event triggered

2990-555: The Aurignacian culture. Between 12,900 and 11,700 years ago, north-central Germany was part of the Ahrensburg culture (named for Ahrensburg ). The first groups of early farmers different from the indigenous hunter-gatherers to migrate into Europe came from a population in western Anatolia at the beginning of the Neolithic period between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. Central Germany

3120-555: The Battle of Legnano in 1176. The following year a reconciliation was reached between the emperor and Pope Alexander III in the Treaty of Venice . The 1183 Peace of Constance eventually settled that the Italian cities remained loyal to the empire but were granted local jurisdiction and full regal rights in their territories. In 1180, Henry the Lion was outlawed, Saxony was divided, and Bavaria

3250-666: The East German railway incongruously continued to use the name Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Reich Railways), which had been the name of the national railway during the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era. Even after German reunification in October 1990, the Reichsbahn continued to exist for over three years as the operator of the railroad in eastern Germany, ending finally on 1 January 1994 when

3380-554: The European migrant crisis as the main receiver of asylum seekers from Syria and other troubled regions. Germany opposed Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and decided to strengthen its armed forces . Pre-human apes such as Danuvius guggenmosi , who were present in Germany over 11 million years ago, are theorized to be among the earliest apes to walk on two legs prior to other species and genera such as Australopithecus . The discovery of

3510-716: The Golden Bull stipulated that all future emperors were to be chosen by a college of only seven – four secular and three clerical – electors. The secular electors were the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony , and the Margrave of Brandenburg , the clerical electors were the Archbishops of Mainz , Trier , and Cologne . Between 1347 and 1351 Germany and almost

3640-709: The Guelph party. However, the Margraviate of Austria was separated from Bavaria and turned into the independent Duchy of Austria by virtue of the Privilegium Minus in 1156. Having become wealthy through trade, the confident cities of Northern Italy, supported by the Pope, increasingly opposed Barbarossa's claim of feudal rule (Honor Imperii) over Italy. The cities united in the Lombard League and finally defeated Barbarossa in

3770-584: The Homo heidelbergensis mandible in 1907 affirms archaic human presence in Germany by at least 600,000 years ago, so stone tools were dated as far back as 1.33 million years ago. The oldest complete set of hunting weapons ever found anywhere in the world was excavated from a coal mine in Schöningen , Lower Saxony . Between 1994 and 1998, eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins between 1.82 and 2.25 m (5.97 and 7.38 ft) in length were eventually unearthed. One of

3900-541: The Investiture Controversy . In 1122, a temporary reconciliation was reached between Henry V and the Pope with the Concordat of Worms . With the conclusion of the dispute the Roman church and the papacy regained supreme control over all religious affairs. Consequently, the imperial Ottonian church system ( Reichskirche ) declined. It also ended the royal/imperial tradition of appointing selected powerful clerical leaders to counter

4030-490: The Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Belgium as opposed to the European part of the Netherlands or the provincial or municipal governments. The ministerraad is the executive body of the Netherlands ' government and the rijksministerraad that of the Kingdom of the Netherlands , a similar distinction is found in wetten (laws) versus rijkswetten (kingdom laws) or the now-abolished rijkswacht (lit. "guard of

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4160-407: The Lombards , who posed a permanent threat to the Holy See. Pressed by Liutprand, King of the Lombards , a Papal envoy for help had already been sent to the de facto ruler Charles Martel after his victory in 732 over the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate at the Battle of Tours , however a lasting and mutually beneficial alliance would only materialize after Charles' death under his successor Duke of

4290-529: The Merovingian dynasty conquered northern Gaul in 486 and in the Battle of Tolbiac in 496 the Alemanni tribe in Swabia , which eventually became the Duchy of Swabia . By 500, Clovis had united all the Frankish tribes, ruled all of Gaul and was proclaimed King of the Franks between 509 and 511. Clovis, unlike most Germanic rulers of the time, was baptized directly into Roman Catholicism instead of Arianism . His successors would cooperate closely with papal missionaries, among them Saint Boniface . After

4420-460: The Migration Period . Hunnic hegemony over a vast territory in central and eastern Europe lasted until the death of Attila 's son Dengizich in 469. Another pivotal moment in the Migration Period was the Crossing of the Rhine in December of 406 by a large group of tribes including Vandals , Alans and Suebi who settled permanently within the crumbling Western Roman Empire. Stem duchies ( German : Stammesherzogtümer ) in Germany refer to

4550-414: The Napoleonic Wars , feudalism fell away and the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806. Napoleon established the Confederation of the Rhine as a German puppet state, but after the French defeat, the German Confederation was established under Austrian presidency. The German revolutions of 1848–1849 failed but the Industrial Revolution modernized the German economy, leading to rapid urban growth and

4680-426: The North Sea joined the union, which resulted in greater diplomatic esteem. Recognized by the various regional princes for the great economic potential, favorable charters for, often exclusive, commercial operations were granted. During its zenith the alliance maintained trading posts and kontors in virtually all cities between London and Edinburgh in the west to Novgorod in the east and Bergen in Norway. By

4810-464: The Rhine river placed it at the intersection of the major trade routes between east and west and was the basis of Cologne's growth. The economic structures of medieval and early modern Cologne were characterized by the city's status as a major harbor and transport hub upon the Rhine. It was the seat of an archbishop, under whose patronage the vast Cologne Cathedral was built since 1240. The cathedral houses sacred Christian relics and it has since become

4940-416: The Saale and Elbe rivers, such as modern Poland and Silesia and to the south into Bohemia , modern Hungary and Romania during the High Middle Ages from the 11th to the 14th century. The primary purpose of the early imperial military campaigns into the lands to the east during the 10th and 11th century, was to punish and subjugate the local heathen tribes. Conquered territories were mostly lost after

5070-443: The Teutonic Knights launched the Prussian Crusade . The campaign, that was supported by the forces of Polish duke Konrad I of Masovia , initially intended to Christianize the Baltic Old Prussians , succeeded primarily in the conquest of large territories. The order, emboldened by imperial approval , quickly resolved to establish an independent state , without the consent of duke Konrad. Recognizing only papal authority and based on

5200-423: The Transylvanian Saxons in the medieval Hungarian Kingdom (today in Romania) who were called on by Geza II to repopulate the area as part of the Ostsiedlung , having arrived there and founding the city in 1147 [Saxons called these parts of Transylvania "Altland" to distinguish them from later immigrant Saxon settlements established in about 1220 by the Teutonic Order]. In 1230, the Catholic monastic order of

5330-441: The Welfs or Guelphs (in Italian) supported the House of Welf of Henry the Proud, which was the ruling dynasty in the Duchy of Bavaria. The rival faction of the Waiblings or Ghibellines (in Italian) pledged allegiance to the Swabian House of Hohenstaufen. During this early period, the Welfs generally maintained ecclesiastical independence under the papacy and political particularism (the focus on ducal interests against

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5460-443: The municipal legal system . Cities such as Cologne , that had acquired the status of Imperial Free Cities , were no longer answerable to the local landlords or bishops, but immediate subjects of the Emperor and enjoyed greater commercial and legal liberties. The towns were ruled by a council of the – usually mercantile – elite, the patricians . Craftsmen formed guilds , governed by strict rules, which sought to obtain control of

5590-432: The political slogan Ein Volk , ein Reich, ein Führer ("One nation, one Reich , one leader"), in order to enforce pan-German sentiment. The term Altes Reich ("old Reich"; cf. French ancien regime for monarchical France) is sometimes used to refer to the Holy Roman Empire . The term Altreich was also used after the Anschluss to denote Germany with its pre-1938 post-World War I borders. Another name that

5720-429: The "realm of a king" (a kingdom can also be called kongedømme in Danish and Norwegian and kungadöme or konungadöme in Swedish, direct cognates of the English word). Two regions in Norway that were petty kingdoms before the unification of Norway around 900 AD have retained the word in the names (see Ringerike and Romerike ). The word is also used in " Svea rike ", with the current spelling Sverige ,

5850-407: The Bundestag). As seen in this example, the term "Bund" (federation) has replaced "Reich" in the names of various state institutions such as the army (" Bundeswehr "). The term "Reichstag" also remains in use in the German language as the term for the parliaments of some foreign monarchies, such as Sweden 's Riksdag and Japan 's pre-war Imperial Diet . The exception is that during the Cold War ,

5980-415: The Carolingian empire to be partitioned into three parts by the Treaty of Verdun of 843. Louis the German received the Eastern portion of the kingdom, East Francia , all lands east of the Rhine river and to the north of Italy. This encompassed the territories of the German stem duchies – Franks, Saxons, Swabians , and Bavarians – that were united in a federation under the first non-Frankish king Henry

6110-418: The Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern and eastern states became Protestant, while most of the southern and western states remained Catholic. The Thirty Years' War , a civil war from 1618 to 1648 brought tremendous destruction to the Holy Roman Empire. The estates of the empire attained great autonomy in the Peace of Westphalia , the most important being Austria , Prussia , Bavaria and Saxony . With

6240-406: The Celts are related to the Urnfield culture remains disputed. However, Celtic cultural centres developed in central Europe during the late Bronze Age ( c.  1200 BC until 700 BC). Some, like the Heuneburg , the oldest city north of the Alps, grew to become important cultural centres of the Iron Age in Central Europe, that maintained trade routes to the Mediterranean . In the 5th century BC

6370-405: The Danes, the Saxons and the Visigoths. King Chlothar I (558 to 561) ruled the greater part of what is now Germany and undertook military expeditions into Saxony , while the South-east of what is modern Germany remained under the influence of the Ostrogoths . Saxons controlled the area from the northern sea board to the Harz Mountains and the Eichsfeld in the south. The Merovingians placed

6500-475: The Eastern parts of the Holy Roman Empire . In the history of Germany specifically, it is used to refer to: The Nazis adopted the term "Third Reich" to legitimize their government as the rightful successor to the retroactively renamed "First" and "Second" Reichs – the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire, respectively; the Nazis discounted the legitimacy of the Weimar Republic entirely. The terms "First Reich" and "Second Reich" are not used by historians, and

6630-485: The Emperor) as officials. Chivalry and the court life flowered, as expressed in the scholastic philosophy of Albertus Magnus and the literature of Wolfram von Eschenbach . Between 1212 and 1250, Frederick II established a modern, professionally administered state from his base in Sicily . He resumed the conquest of Italy, leading to further conflict with the Papacy . In the Empire, extensive sovereign powers were granted to ecclesiastical and secular princes, leading to

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6760-418: The Emperor. This precipitated the "Crisis of 1111" as yet another chapter of the long-term Investiture Controversy . In 1137, the prince-electors turned back to the Hohenstaufen family for a candidate, Conrad III . Conrad tried to divest his rival Henry the Proud of his two duchies— Bavaria and Saxony —that led to war in southern Germany as the empire was divided into two powerful factions. The faction of

6890-496: The English word realm (via French reaume "kingdom" from Latin regalis "royal"). It is used for historical empires in general, such as the Roman Empire ( Römisches Reich ), Persian Empire ( Perserreich ), and both the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire ( Zarenreich , literally " Tsars ' realm"). Österreich , the name used for Austria today is composed of "Öster" and "Reich" which, literally translated, means "Eastern Realm". The name once referred to

7020-399: The European Jewish population). By 1944, the German Army was pushed back on all fronts until finally collapsing in May 1945. Under occupation by the Allies , denazification efforts took place, large populations under former German-occupied territories were displaced, German territories were split up by the victorious powers and in the east annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union. Germany spent

7150-531: The Fowler , who ruled from 919 to 936. The royal court permanently moved in between a series of strongholds, called Kaiserpfalzen , that developed into economic and cultural centers. Aachen Palace played a central role, as the local Palatine Chapel served as the official site for all royal coronation ceremonies during the entire Medieval period until 1531. In 936, Otto I was crowned German king at Aachen , in 961 King of Italy in Pavia and crowned emperor by Pope John XII in Rome in 962. The tradition of

7280-411: The Franks from 774 to 814) launched a decades-long military campaign against the Franks' heathen rivals, the Saxons and the Avars . The campaigns and insurrections of the Saxon Wars lasted from 772 to 804. The Franks eventually overwhelmed the Saxons and Avars, forcibly converted the people to Christianity , and annexed their lands to the Carolingian Empire . After the death of Frankish king Pepin

7410-407: The Franks, Pepin the Short. In 751 Pippin III , Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian king, himself assumed the title of king and was anointed by the Church. Pope Stephen II bestowed him the hereditary title of Patricius Romanorum as protector of Rome and St. Peter in response to the Donation of Pepin , that guaranteed the sovereignty of the Papal States . Charles the Great (who ruled

7540-451: The German Empire with the abdication of Wilhelm II in 1918 and established the Weimar Republic , an ultimately unstable parliamentary democracy. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler , leader of the Nazi Party , used the economic hardships of the Great Depression along with popular resentment over the terms imposed on Germany at the end of World War I to establish a totalitarian regime. This Nazi Germany made racism, especially antisemitism ,

7670-419: The German King as protector of the Kingdom of Italy and the Latin Church resulted in the term Holy Roman Empire in the 12th century. The name, that was to identify with Germany continued to be used officially, with the extension added: Nationis Germanicæ (of the German nation) after the last imperial coronation in Rome in 1452 until its dissolution in 1806. Otto strengthened the royal authority by re-asserting

7800-439: The German names for Germany for much of its history. Reich was used by itself in the common German variant of the Holy Roman Empire , ( Heiliges Römisches Reich (HRR) ). Der rîche was a title for the Emperor. However, Latin, not German, was the formal legal language of the medieval Empire ( Imperium Romanum Sacrum ), so English-speaking historians are more likely to use Latin imperium than German Reich as

7930-400: The German nation rather than directly to the state of Germany. The exact translation of the term "German Empire" would be Deutsches Kaiserreich . This name was sometimes used informally for Germany between 1871 and 1918, but it was disliked by the first German Emperor, Wilhelm I , and never became official. The unified Germany which arose under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1871

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8060-436: The German territories range around 5 to 6 million by the end of Henry III's reign in 1056 and about 7 to 8 million after Friedrich Barbarossa's rule in 1190. The vast majority were farmers, typically in a state of serfdom under feudal lords and monasteries. Towns gradually emerged and in the 12th century many new cities were founded along the trading routes and near imperial strongholds and castles. The towns were subjected to

8190-480: The Germanic word was not inherited from pre-Proto-Germanic, but rather loaned from Celtic (i.e. Gaulish rīx , Welsh rhi , both meaning 'king') at an early time . The word has many cognates outside of Germanic and Celtic, notably Latin : rex and Sanskrit : राज , romanized :  raj , lit.   'rule'. It is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European * reg- , lit. 'to straighten out or rule'. Frankenreich or Fränkisches Reich

8320-433: The Greek historian Herodotus mentioned a Celtic city at the Danube – Pyrene , that historians attribute to the Heuneburg. Beginning around 700 BC (or later), Germanic peoples (Germanic tribes) from southern Scandinavia and northern Germany expanded south and gradually replaced the Celtic peoples in Central Europe. The ethnogenesis of the Germanic tribes remains debated. However, for author Averil Cameron "it

8450-566: The Imperial secular princes. Between 1095 and 1291 the various campaigns of the crusades to the Holy Land took place. Knightly religious orders were established, including the Knights Templar , the Knights of St John ( Knights Hospitaller ), and the Teutonic Order . The term sacrum imperium (Holy Empire) was first used officially by Friedrich I in 1157, but the words Sacrum Romanum Imperium , Holy Roman Empire, were only combined in July 1180 and would never consistently appear on official documents from 1254 onwards. The Hanseatic League

8580-432: The Middle Ages, with Christian religious structures such as the Aula Palatina of Trier built during the reign of Constantine I ( r.  306–337 ). Rome's Third Century Crisis coincided with the emergence of a number of large West Germanic tribes: the Alamanni , Franks , Bavarii , Chatti , Saxons , Frisii , Sicambri , and Thuringii . By the 3rd century the Germanic speaking peoples began to migrate beyond

8710-435: The Pope reached its peak. However, Rome reacted with the creation of the College of Cardinals and Pope Gregory VII 's series of clerical reforms . Pope Gregory insisted in his Dictatus Papae on absolute papal authority over appointments to ecclesiastical offices. The subsequent conflict in which emperor Henry IV was compelled to submit to the Pope at Canossa in 1077, after having been excommunicated came to be known as

8840-468: The Reichsbahn and the western Deutsche Bundesbahn were merged to form the privatized Deutsche Bahn AG . The cognate of the word Reich is used in all Scandinavian languages with the identical meaning, i.e. " realm ". It is spelled rige in Danish and older Norwegian (before the 1907 spelling reform ) and rike in Swedish and modern Norwegian. The word is traditionally used for sovereign entities, generally simply means "country" or "nation" (in

8970-410: The Roman Empire; the vision of God's Empire here on earth; the universality of its claim to suzerainty ; and in a more prosaic but no less powerful sense, the concept of a German state that would include all German speakers in central Europe—"one People, one Reich, one Leader", as the Nazi slogan was to put it. The term is derived from the Germanic word which generally means "realm", but in German, it

9100-415: The Saxons in support of the Neustrians . In 743 his son Carloman in his role as Mayor of the Palace renewed the war against the Saxons, who had allied with and aided the duke Odilo of Bavaria . The Catholic Franks, who by 750 controlled a vast territory in Gaul, north-western Germany, Swabia, Burgundy and western Switzerland , that included the alpine passes allied with the Curia in Rome against

9230-448: The Short in 768, his oldest son " Charlemagne " ("Charles the Great") consolidated his power over and expanded the Kingdom . Charlemagne ended 200 years of Royal Lombard rule with the Siege of Pavia , and in 774 he installed himself as King of the Lombards . Loyal Frankish nobles replaced the old Lombard aristocracy following a rebellion in 776. The next 30 years of his reign were spent ruthlessly strengthening his power in Francia and on

9360-562: The Urnfield culture of central Europe. The Hallstatt culture , which had developed from the Urnfield culture, was the predominant Western and Central European culture from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and during the early Iron Age (8th to 6th centuries BC). It was followed by the La Tène culture (5th to 1st centuries BC). The people who had adopted these cultural characteristics in central and southern Germany are regarded as Celts . How and if

9490-638: The abbots and bishops he appointed, Otto actually turned these bishops into "princes of the Empire" ( Reichsfürsten ). In this way, Otto was able to establish a national church. Outside threats to the kingdom were contained with the decisive defeat of the Hungarian Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. The Slavs between the Elbe and the Oder rivers were also subjugated. Otto marched on Rome and drove John XII from

9620-537: The basis for the political integration of Western Europe in the European Union . In 1998–1999, Germany was one of the founding countries of the eurozone . Germany remains one of the economic powerhouses of Europe, contributing about 1/4 of the eurozone's annual gross domestic product . In the early 2010s, Germany played a critical role in trying to resolve the escalating euro crisis, especially concerning Greece and other Southern European nations. In 2015, Germany faced

9750-568: The beginning of the modern age , some circles redubbed the HRE into the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" ( Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation ), a symptom of the formation of a German nation state as opposed to the multinational state the Empire was throughout its history. Resistance against the French Revolution with its concept of the state brought a new movement to create

9880-595: The borderlands into hereditary fiefs and install a civilian administration. There is no discernible chronology of the immigration process as it took place in many individual efforts and stages, often even encouraged by the Slavic regional lords. However, the new communities were subjected to German law and customs. Total numbers of settlers were generally rather low and, depending on who held a numerical majority, populations usually assimilated into each other. In many regions only enclaves would persist, like Hermannstadt , founded by

10010-502: The central imperial authority). The Waiblings, on the other hand, championed strict control of the church and a strong central imperial government. During the reign of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa), an accommodation was reached in 1156 between the two factions. The Duchy of Bavaria was returned to Henry the Proud's son Henry the Lion , duke of Saxony , who represented

10140-524: The collapse of the German Empire and the abolition of the monarchy in 1918. There was no emperor, but many Germans had imperialistic ambitions. According to Richard J. Evans : The continued use of the term "German Empire", Deutsches Reich , by the Weimar Republic ... conjured up an image among educated Germans that resonated far beyond the institutional structures Bismarck created: the successor to

10270-562: The compounds bishopric and archbishopric . The German adjective reich , on the other hand, has an exact cognate in English rich . Both the noun ( * rīkijan ) and the adjective ( * rīkijaz ) are derivations based on the Common Germanic * rīks "ruler, king ", reflected in Gothic as reiks , glossing ἄρχων "leader, ruler, chieftain". It is probable that

10400-645: The conquest of the Slavs and Pannonian Avars in the east and all tribes , such as the Saxons and the Bavarians . On Christmas Day , 800 AD, Charlemagne was crowned Imperator Romanorum (Emperor of the Romans) in Rome by Pope Leo III . Fighting among Charlemagne's three grandsons over the continuation of the custom of partible inheritance or the introduction of primogeniture caused

10530-626: The custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns , which were then buried in fields. The first usage of the name occurred in publications over grave sites in southern Germany in the late 19th century. Over much of Europe, the Urnfield culture followed the Tumulus culture and was succeeded by the Hallstatt culture . The Italic peoples , including the Latins , from which the Romans emerged, come from

10660-642: The death of Clovis in 511, his four sons partitioned his kingdom including Austrasia . Authority over Austrasia passed back and forth from autonomy to royal subjugation, as successive Merovingian kings alternately united and subdivided the Frankish lands. During the 5th and 6th centuries the Merovingian kings conquered the Thuringii (531 to 532), the Kingdom of the Burgundians and the principality of Metz and defeated

10790-522: The early history of the Germanic tribes is rare. Researchers have to be content with the recordings of the tribes' affairs with the Romans , linguistic conclusions, archaeological discoveries and the rather new yet auspicious results of archaeogenetic study. In the mid-1st century BC, Republican Roman statesman Julius Caesar erected the first known bridges across the Rhine during his campaign in Gaul and led

10920-520: The east were vehemently opposed by Caesar, who had already launched his ambitious campaign to subjugate all Gaul. Julius Caesar defeated the Suebi forces in 58 BC in the Battle of Vosges and forced Ariovistus to retreat across the Rhine. Augustus , first Roman emperor , considered conquest beyond the Rhine and the Danube not only regular foreign policy but also necessary to counter Germanic incursions into

11050-520: The emergence of the socialist movement . Prussia, with its capital Berlin , grew in power. German universities became world-class centers for science and humanities, while music and art flourished. The unification of Germany was achieved under the leadership of the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck with the formation of the German Empire in 1871. The new Reichstag , an elected parliament, had only

11180-574: The entire European continent were consumed by the most severe outbreak of the Black Death pandemic . Estimated to have caused the abrupt death of 30 to 60% of Europe's population, it led to widespread social and economic disruption and deep religious disaffection and fanaticism. Minority groups, and Jews in particular were blamed, singled out and attacked . As a consequence, many Jews fled and resettled in Eastern Europe. Total population estimates of

11310-700: The entirety of the Cold War era divided into the NATO -aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact -aligned East Germany . Germans also fled from Communist areas into West Germany, which experienced rapid economic expansion , and became the dominant economy in Western Europe. In 1989, the Berlin Wall was opened , the Eastern Bloc collapsed, and East and West Germany were reunited in 1990. The Franco-German friendship became

11440-704: The fertile plains of Central Europe during the Late Neolithic were of Indo-European ancestry. The Indo-Europeans had, via mass-migration, arrived into the heartland of Europe around 4,500 years ago. By the late Bronze Age , the Urnfield culture ( c.  1300 BC  – c.  750 BC ) had replaced the Bell Beaker , Unetice and Tumulus cultures in central Europe, whilst the Nordic Bronze Age had developed in Scandinavia and northern Germany. The name comes from

11570-568: The heart of the future Prussia ), and the Billung March . In the south, the marches included Carniola , Styria , and the March of Austria that would become Austria . The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 with the deposition of Romulus Augustus by the Germanic foederati leader Odoacer , who became the first King of Italy . Afterwards, the Franks, like other post-Roman Western Europeans, emerged as

11700-480: The historically Germanic countries and regions of Europe into the Nazi state ( Flanders , the Netherlands , Denmark , Norway , Sweden etc.). A number of previously neutral words which were used by the Nazis later took on negative connotations in German (e.g. Führer or Heil ); while in many contexts Reich is not one of them ( Frankreich , France; Römisches Reich , Roman Empire ), it can imply German imperialism or strong nationalism if it

11830-527: The imposition of taxes and a legal framework were frustrated by the total absence of an infrastructure. Germanicus 's campaigns , for example, were almost exclusively characterized by frequent massacres of villagers and indiscriminate pillaging. The tribes, however maintained their elusive identities. A coalition of tribes under the Cherusci chieftain Arminius , who was familiar with Roman tactical doctrines, defeated

11960-480: The late 14th century the powerful league enforced its interests with military means, if necessary. This culminated in a war with the sovereign Kingdom of Denmark from 1361 to 1370. Principal city of the Hanseatic League remained Lübeck, where in 1356 the first general diet was held and its official structure was announced. The league declined after 1450 due to a number of factors, such as the 15th-century crisis ,

12090-463: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reichsbanner&oldid=998768764 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Reich The term Deutsches Reich (sometimes translated to " German Empire ") continued to be used even after

12220-461: The name of Sweden in Swedish. Thus in the official name of Sweden, Konunga riket Sve rige , the word rike appears twice. The derived prefix rigs- (Danish and pre-1907 Norwegian) and riks- (Swedish and Norwegian) and implies nationwide or under central jurisdiction. Examples include riksväg and riksvei , names for a national road in Swedish and Norwegian. It is also present in

12350-564: The names of numerous institutions in all the Scandinavian countries, such as Rigsrevisionen (the agency responsible for oversight of the state finances in Denmark) and Sveriges Riksbank (commonly known as just Riksbanken ), the central bank of Sweden. It is also used in words such as udenrigs (Danish), utrikes (Swedish) and utenriks (Norwegian), relating to foreign countries and other things from abroad. The opposite word

12480-421: The old Carolingian rights over ecclesiastical appointments. Otto wrested from the nobles the powers of appointment of the bishops and abbots, who controlled large land holdings. Additionally, Otto revived the old Carolingian program of appointing missionaries in the border lands. Otto continued to support celibacy for the higher clergy, so ecclesiastical appointments never became hereditary. By granting lands to

12610-606: The oldest buildings in the world and one of the oldest pieces of art was found in Bilzingsleben . In 1856, the fossilized bones of an extinct human species were salvaged from a limestone grotto in the Neander valley near Düsseldorf , North Rhine-Westphalia . The archaic nature of the fossils, now known to be around 40,000 years old, was recognized and the characteristics published in the first-ever paleoanthropologic species description in 1858 by Hermann Schaaffhausen . The species

12740-435: The oldest uncontested works of art and several flutes, made of bird bone and mammoth ivory that are confirmed to be the oldest musical instruments ever found. The 41,000-year-old Löwenmensch figurine represents the oldest uncontested figurative work of art and the 40,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels has been asserted as the oldest uncontested object of human figurative art ever discovered. These artefacts are attributed to

12870-464: The once important Low Germans had to assimilate themselves. This marked the transition between Antijudaism , where converted Jews were accepted as full citizens (in theory), to Antisemitism , where Jews were thought to be from a different ethnicity that could never become German. Apart from all those ethnic minorities being de facto extinct, even today the era of national feeling is taught in history in German schools as an important stepping-stone on

13000-695: The other West Germanic tribes . When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charles the Great 's heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia . In 962, Otto I became the first Holy Roman Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire , the medieval German state. During the High Middle Ages , the Hanseatic League , dominated by German port cities, established itself along the Baltic and North Seas . The growth of

13130-573: The papacy led to the 1338 Declaration at Rhense by six princes of the Imperial Estate to the effect that election by all or the majority of the electors automatically conferred the royal title and rule over the empire, without papal confirmation. As result, the monarch was no longer subject to papal approbation and became increasingly dependent on the favour of the electors. Between 1346 and 1378 Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg , king of Bohemia, sought to restore imperial authority. The 1356 decree of

13260-433: The papal throne and for years controlled the election of the pope, setting a firm precedent for imperial control of the papacy for years to come. Otto I was followed on the throne by his son Otto II (955–983), emperor 973–983, Otto II’s wife Theophanu (955–991), regent 983–991, his own wife Adelaide of Italy (931–999), regent 991–995, and his grandson Otto III (980–1002), emperor 996–1002. Otto III died childless and

13390-488: 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. The Nazis ignored the previous 1918–1933 Weimar period , which they denounced as

13520-569: The realm") for gendarmerie in Belgium . The word rijk can also be found in institutions like the Rijkswaterstaat , Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu and Rijksuniversiteit Groningen . In colloquial speech, rijk usually means working for the central government rather than the provincial or municipal government, much as Americans refer to the "federal" government. In Afrikaans , ryk refers to rulership and area of governance (mostly

13650-458: The regular provinces of Noricum and Raetia . The provinces Germania Inferior (with the capital situated at Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium , modern Cologne ) and Germania Superior (with its capital at Mogontiacum , modern Mainz ), were formally established in 85 AD, after long campaigns as lasting military control was confined to the lands surrounding the rivers. Christianity was introduced to Roman controlled western Germania before

13780-494: The remaining lands of the order into the secular Duchy of Prussia . Henry V , great-grandson of Conrad II, who had overthrown his father Henry IV became Holy Roman Emperor in 1111. Hoping to gain greater control over the church inside the Empire, Henry V appointed Adalbert of Saarbrücken as the powerful archbishop of Mainz in the same year. Adalbert began to assert the powers of the Church against secular authorities, that is,

13910-498: The rise of independent territorial states. The struggle with the Pope sapped the Empire's strength, as Frederick II was excommunicated three times. After his death, the Hohenstaufen dynasty fell, followed by an interregnum during which there was no Emperor (1250–1273). This interregnum came to an end with the election of a small Swabian count, Rudolf of Habsburg, as emperor. The failure of negotiations between Emperor Louis IV and

14040-599: The road to a German nation. In the case of the Hohenzollern Empire (1871–1918), the official name of the country was Deutsches Reich ("German Realm"), because under the Constitution of the German Empire , it was legally a confederation of German states under the permanent presidency of the King of Prussia . The constitution granted the King of Prussia the title of "German Emperor" ( Deutscher Kaiser ), but this referred to

14170-576: The same way that the terms Bund (federation) and Bundes- (federal) are used in Germany today, and comparable to The Crown in Commonwealth countries and The Union in the United States . 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 Drittes Reich ("Third Empire" – usually rendered in English in

14300-463: The sense of a sovereign state) and does not have any special or political connotations. It does not imply any particular form of government, but it implies that the entity is both of a certain size and of a certain standing, like the Scandinavian kingdoms themselves; hence the word might be considered exaggerated for very small states like a city-state. Its use as a stand-alone word is more widespread than in contemporary German, but most often, it refers to

14430-500: The stem duchies as the major divisions of Germany, but they became increasingly obsolete during the early high-medieval period under the Hohenstaufen , and Frederick Barbarossa finally abolished them in 1180 in favour of more numerous territorial duchies. Successive kings of Germany founded a series of border counties or marches in the east and the north. These included Lusatia , the North March (which would become Brandenburg and

14560-460: The term " Fourth Reich " is mainly used in fiction and political humor, although it is also used by those who subscribe to neo-Nazism . The German noun Reich is derived from Old High German : rīhhi , which together with its cognates in Old English : rīce , Old Norse : ríki , and Gothic : reiki is derived from a Common Germanic * rīkijan . The English noun survives only in

14690-403: The territorial lords' shifting policies towards greater commercial control, the silver crisis and marginalization in the wider Eurasian trade network, among others. The Ostsiedlung (lit. Eastern settlement) is the term for a process of largely uncoordinated immigration and chartering of settlement structures by ethnic Germans into territories, already inhabited by Slavs and Balts east of

14820-441: The three Scandinavian states themselves and certain historical empires, like the Roman Empire . The standard word for a "country" is usually land , and there are many other words used to refer to countries. The word is part of the official names of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the form of kongerige   ( Danish ) , kongerike   ( Norwegian ) , and konungarike   ( Swedish ) , all meaning kingdom, or literally

14950-465: The towns; a few were open to women. Society had diversified, but was divided into sharply demarcated classes of the clergy , physicians , merchants , various guilds of artisans, unskilled day labourers and peasants . Full citizenship was not available to paupers . Political tensions arose from issues of taxation, public spending, regulation of business, and market supervision, as well as the limits of corporate autonomy. Cologne's central location on

15080-603: The traditional territory of the various Germanic tribes. The concept of such duchies survived especially in the areas which by the 9th century would constitute East Francia , which included the Duchy of Bavaria , the Duchy of Swabia , the Duchy of Saxony , the Duchy of Franconia and the Duchy of Thuringia , unlike further west the County of Burgundy or Lorraine in Middle Francia . The Salian emperors (reigned 1027–1125) retained

15210-479: The troops had retreated, but eventually were incorporated into the empire as marches , fortified borderlands with garrisoned troops in strongholds and castles, who were to ensure military control and enforce the exaction of tributes. Contemporary sources do not support the idea of policies or plans for the organized settlement of civilians. Emperor Lothair II re-established feudal sovereignty over Poland, Denmark and Bohemia from 1135 and appointed margraves to turn

15340-664: The unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania , thus distinguishing it from Gaul . The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest ( AD 9) prevented annexation by the Roman Empire , although the Roman provinces of Germania Superior and Germania Inferior were established along the Rhine . Following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire , the Franks conquered

15470-485: The various regions of their Frankish Empire under the control of semi-autonomous dukes – either Franks or local rulers, and followed imperial Roman strategic traditions of social and political integration of the newly conquered territories. While allowed to preserve their own legal systems, the conquered Germanic tribes were pressured to abandon the Arian Christian faith. In 718 Charles Martel waged war against

15600-410: 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)

15730-622: Was a commercial and defensive alliance of the merchant guilds of towns and cities in northern and central Europe that dominated marine trade in the Baltic Sea , the North Sea and along the connected navigable rivers during the Late Middle Ages ( 12th to 15th centuries ). Each of the affiliated cities retained the legal system of its sovereign and, with the exception of the Free imperial cities , had only

15860-561: 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 in reference to the Nazi dictatorship, historians avoid using 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

15990-638: Was given to Otto of Wittelsbach , who founded the Wittelsbach dynasty , which was to rule Bavaria until 1918. From 1184 to 1186, the empire under Frederick I Barbarossa reached its cultural peak with the Diet of Pentecost held at Mainz and the marriage of his son Henry in Milan to the Norman princess Constance of Sicily . The power of the feudal lords was undermined by the appointment of ministerials (unfree servants of

16120-594: Was named Homo neanderthalensis , Neanderthal man in 1864. The oldest traces of homo sapiens in Germany were found in the cave Ilsenhöhle  [ de ] in Ranis , where up to 47,500-year-old remains were discovered, among the oldest in Europe. The remains of Paleolithic early modern human occupation uncovered and documented in several caves in the Swabian Jura include various mammoth ivory sculptures that rank among

16250-695: Was one of the primary areas of the Linear Pottery culture ( c.  5500 BC  – c.  4500 BC ), which was partially contemporary with the Ertebølle culture ( c.  5300 BC  – c.  3950 BC ) of Denmark and northern Germany. The construction of the Central European Neolithic circular enclosures falls in this time period with the best known and oldest being the Goseck circle , constructed c.  4900 BC . Afterwards, Germany

16380-403: Was part of the Rössen culture , Michelsberg culture and Funnelbeaker culture ( c.  4600 BC  – c.  2800 BC ). The oldest traces for the use of wheel and wagon ever found are located at a northern German Funnelbeaker culture site and date to around 3400 BC. The settlers of the Corded Ware culture ( c.  2900 BC  – c.  2350 BC ), that had spread all over

16510-409: Was popular during this period was the term Tausendjähriges Reich ("Thousand-Year Reich"), the millennial connotations of which suggested that Nazi Germany would last a thousand years. The Nazis also spoke of enlarging the then-established Greater German Reich into a " Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation " ( Großgermanisches Reich Deutscher Nation ) by gradually and directly annexing all of

16640-503: Was succeeded by his second cousin Henry II , who likewise died childless as the last emperor of the Ottonian dynasty. Henry II was succeeded by Conrad II , a great-great-grandson of Otto I and the first emperor of the Salian dynasty . During the reign of Conrad II's son, Henry III (1039 to 1056), the empire supported the Cluniac reforms of the Church, the Peace of God , prohibition of simony (the purchase of clerical offices), and required celibacy of priests. Imperial authority over

16770-461: Was the first entity that was officially called in German Deutsches Reich . Deutsches Reich remained the official name of Germany until 1945, although these years saw three very different political systems more commonly referred to in English as: "the German Empire " (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933; this term is a post- World War II coinage not used at the time), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). After 1918 "Reich"

16900-407: 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 Reich and the prefix Reichs- 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 ( Länder ), in

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