Part 1: The Three Reichs
By Robert Wilde
The German word ‘reich’ means ‘empire’, although it can also be translated as government. In 1930’s Germany the Nazi party identified their rule as a third Reich, and in doing so gave English speakers around the world a new, and wholly negative, connotation to the word. Some people are surprised to find that the concept, and use, of three reichs is not a solely Nazi idea, but a common component of German historiography. This misconception stems from the use of ‘Reich’ as totalitarian nightmare, and not as empire. In this article your Guide will examine the institutions referred to as reichs, and explore how they compare.
The First Reich: The Holy Roman Empire (800/962 - 1806)
Although the name dates to the twelfth century reign of Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Empire was created over 300 years earlier. In 800 AD Charlemagne was crowned emperor of a territory which covered much of western and central Europe; this created an institution that would remain, in one form or another, for over a thousand years. The Empire was reinvigorated by Otto I in the tenth century, and his imperial coronation in 962 has also been used to define the start of both the Holy Roman Empire, and the First Reich. By this stage Charlemagne’s empire had been divided, and the remainder was based around a set of core territories, occupying much the same area as modern Germany.
The geography, politics and strength of this empire continued to fluctuate massively over the next eight hundred years, but the imperial ideal, and the German heartland, remained. In 1806 the Empire was abolished by the then Emperor Francis II, partly as a response to the Napoleonic threat. Allowing for the difficulties in summarising the Holy Roman Empire - which parts of a fluid thousand year history do you select? - it was generally a loose confederation of many smaller, almost independent, territories, with little desire to vastly expand across Europe.
The Second Reich: The German Empire (1871 - 1918)
The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, combined with a growing feeling of German nationalism, led to repeated attempts at unifying the multitude of German territories, before a single state was created almost solely by the will of Otto von Bismarck. Between 1862 and 1871 this great Prussian politician used a combination of persuasion, strategy, skill and outright warfare to create a German Empire dominated by Prussia, and ruled by the Kaiser. This new state, the Kaiserreich, grew to dominate European politics at the close of the 19th, and start of the 20th, century. In 1918, after defeat in the Great War, a popular revolution forced the Kaiser into abdication and exile; a republic was then declared. The German Empire was the largely the opposite of the Holy Roman, despite having the Kaiser as a similar imperial figurehead: a centralised and authoritarian state which, after the dismissal of Bismarck in 1890, maintained an aggressive foreign policy.
The Third Reich: Nazi Germany (1933 - 1945)
In 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of the German State. Dictatorial powers and sweeping changes soon followed, as democracy disappeared and the country militarised. The Third Reich was to have been a vastly extended German Empire, expunged of minorities and lasting for a thousand years, but it was removed in 1945 by a combined force of allied nations, which included Britain, France, Russia and the US. The Nazi state proved to be dictatorial and expansionist, with goals of ethnic ‘purity’ that formed a stark contrast to the first reich’s broad assortment of peoples and places.
A Complication
When using the standard definition of the term, The Holy Roman, Kaiserreich and Nazi states were certainly reichs: however, the phrase ‘three reichs’ refers to something more than simply three empires. Specifically, it refers to the three empires of German history.
Three Reichs of German History?
The history of modern German is often summarised as being ‘three reichs and three democracies’. This is broadly correct, as modern Germany did indeed evolve out of a series of three empires - as described on the previous page - interspersed with forms of democracy; however, this does not automatically make the institutions German. While ‘The First Reich’ is a useful name for historians and students, applying it to the Holy Roman Empire is largely anachronistic. The imperial title and office of the Holy Roman Emperor drew, originally and in part, on the traditions of the Roman Empire, considering itself as an inheritor, not as the ‘first’.
Indeed, it is highly debatable at what point, if ever, the Holy Roman Empire became a German body. Despite a near continuous core of land in northern central Europe, with a growing national identity, the reich extended into many of the modern surrounding territories, contained a mix of peoples, and was dominated for centuries by a dynasty of emperors commonly associated with Austria. To consider the Holy Roman Empire as solely German, rather than an institution within which there was a considerable German element, might be to lose some of this reich’s character, nature and importance. Conversely, the Kaiserreich was a German state - with an evolving German identity - that partly defined itself in relation to the Holy Roman Empire. The Nazi Reich was also built around one particular concept of being ‘German’; indeed, this latter reich certainly considered itself a descendant of the Holy Roman and German Empires, taking the title ‘third’, to follow them.
Three Different Reichs
The summaries given on the previous page may be very brief, but they are enough to show how these three empires were very different types of state; the temptation for historians has been to try and find some sort of linked progression from one to another. Comparisons between the Holy Roman Empire and the Kaiserreich began before this latter state was even formed. Historians and politicians of the mid 19th century theorised an ideal state, the Machtstaat, a “centralized, authoritarian and militarized power state” (Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, Macmillan, 1999) this was, in part, a reaction to what they considered weaknesses in the old, fragmented, Empire. The Prussian led unification was welcomed by some as the creation of this Machtstaat, a strong German Empire which focused around a new emperor, the Kaiser. However, some historians began to project this unification back into both the 18th century and the Holy Roman Empire, ‘finding’ a long history of Prussian intervention when ‘Germans’ were threatened. Different again were the actions of some scholars in the aftermath of the Second World War, when attempts to understand how the conflict occurred led to the three reichs being seen as an inevitable progression through increasingly authoritarian and militarised governments.
Modern Use
An understanding of the nature, and relationship, of these three reichs is necessary for more than historical study. Despite a claim in the Chambers Dictionary of World History that “The term [Reich] is no longer used” (Dictionary of World History, ed. Lenman and Anderson, Chambers, 1993), politicians and others are fond of describing modern Germany, and even the European union, as a fourth Reich. They almost always use the term negatively, looking to the Nazi’s and the Kaiser rather then the Holy Roman Empire, which might be a far better analogy for the current EU. Clearly, there is room for many differing opinions on the three ‘German’ reichs, and historical parallels are still being drawn with this term today.
Part 2: How Germany is using the financial crisis to conquer Europe
By SIMON HEFFER
The crisis meetings between Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy was arranged before the participants knew of the disastrous growth figures in the Eurozone that have emerged of late.
The background to the meetings was the tumult in the world financial markets. Shares had gone into freefall after the downgrading of America’s credit rating.
Worse than that, however, were the tremors rattling some of Europe’s most important banks, notably in France, caused by further evidence of the utter failure of even the more developed European economies to live anything like within their means..
Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy met to discuss the crisis, with the outcome of conversations suggesting a fiscal union could be created - of which Germany will dictate terms
Chancellor Merkel has managed to use the hard-earned money of German taxpayers to bail out profligate Eurozone countries without suffering any political fall-out. This is unlikely to remain the case and Mrs Merkel knows it.
That is why she plays down talk of the European Central Bank — funded by German-backed Eurobonds — paying off the debts of these all-but-bankrupt nations.
Instead, there is forceful talk of Eurozone countries being coerced into balancing their budgets and reducing their debt through what Merkel and Sarkozy called a ‘true European economic government movement’ made up of all the heads of state and led, initially, by the EU President Herman Van Rompuy.
Frau Merkel called for a ‘stronger coordination of policy’ and ‘a new quality of cooperation’ within the Eurozone.
Although she will not yet admit it, this all suggests the first step has been taken towards a fiscal union that will leave Germany dictating the financial terms for the rest of Europe.
Mr Sarzoky and Mrs Merkel talked of a ‘true economic government movement’ while the German leader called for ‘a stronger coordination of policy’ during the meeting in Paris
It is the one country that is able to do so. Greece, Ireland and Portugal are economic basket cases. We have heard more and more about the trouble in Spain, where unemployment is over 20 per cent.
Italy is tottering — the figures for 2010 show it has debts of 116 per cent of GDP, making the country second only to Greece at around 143 per cent.
Meanwhile, the recent addition of France to the list of at-risk economies has caused real shock and panic across the Channel. Its banks hold about an eighth of Greek debt, or $57 billion, its stock market has tumbled and credit rating agencies are talking of removing France’s triple A status.
So, after a summer of increasingly shrill panics around the Mediterranean, the contagion is moving north. Individual bail-outs have been tried, but they obstinately refuse to work. Only an idiot would think they would: they treat only the symptoms of Europe’s economic decline, not its causes.
If only everybody could be like the Germans, and spend just a mite more than they earn, then all would be well, the markets seem to say.
Germany lay in ruins in 1945, but it then invested in manufacturing plant, developed first-class education, innovated, raised its productivity and competed on quality not price.
Over the next 60 years it won the peace as comprehensively as it lost the war.
The addition of the French economy to the at-risk list has sent tremors through European banks, and across the Channel, while also caused the country’s shares to tumble
If the euro is to survive — and with it the European project — the other 16 Eurozone countries will have to be like the Germans. Indeed, they must lose the freedom not to be like the Germans.
Be in no doubt what fiscal union means: it is one economic policy, one taxation system, one social security system, one debt, one economy, one finance minister. And all of the above would be German
That means a complete fiscal union in which Germany, as the EU’s most powerful economy and principal paymaster, makes the rules and makes them unbreakable.
George Osborne interrupted his holiday in austerity-free Beverly Hills a fortnight ago to make this point by telephone to the European Commission and the ECB.
It is a high-risk strategy on his part, for if such a plan succeeded it would make Europe effectively a German empire, with non-Eurozone countries such as Britain on the sidelines.
George Osborne believes the UK have no choice but to allow the creation of a union, because if European economy implodes then Britain would be badly damaged
Mr Osborne clearly believes we have no choice. His concern is that if the European economy implodes we would be badly damaged: not so much because of the debt owed by countries such as Greece to British banks, but also because of the loss of export markets in the Eurozone countries and investment by them in Britain.
However, the prospects of Germany’s partners in the Eurozone are starker still.
If the global financial markets continue to have no confidence in the sticking-plaster rescue packages offered by Eurozone leaders, some nations will go bankrupt — one or two, such as Greece and Ireland, are already more or less trading while insolvent.
They may hope their salvation, apart from pulling out of the single currency and devaluing, would be to accept Germany properly bolstering the euro and effectively colonising the Eurozone.
This would entail a loss of sovereignty not seen in those countries since many were under the jackboot of the Third Reich 70 years ago.
For be in no doubt what fiscal union means: it is one economic policy, one taxation system, one social security system, one debt, one economy, one finance minister. And all of the above would be German.
That is not merely the price the markets would demand to be confident about the euro’s future, and to be happy to buy debt that could help fund Greece, or Ireland, or Italy. It is also the price that Germans themselves seem to be demanding for their support.
The markets seem to imply that if everyone followed the German lead and spent a mite more than they earned then all would be well
Stern, the German news magazine, conducted a poll last week among Mrs Merkel’s own supporters that showed that 52 per cent were opposed to her bail-out policy, and 62 per cent worried about the course of her party generally.
She is only two years from having to fight another election and cannot defy democratic gravity for ever.
Germany has already pumped 120 billion euros into the 440 billion bail-out fund. It is the fifth biggest economy in the world, which would mean that imposing its way of doing things on the other 16 nations would carry tremendous clout internationally.
It also has another reason for needing to shore up its partners: 42 per cent of its exports go to the Eurozone, with France alone taking 90 billion euros’ worth a year.
Demand for German goods, such as these Volkswagen cars, has slowed in recent months, but German has good reason for shoring up its partners as 42 per cent of exports go to the eurozone
However, the latest figures show that demand for German goods is slowing, as is German growth. Shortly before the extent of the French problem with Greece was made public, Commerzbank — one of Germany’s leading banks — announced that it had to use 93 per cent of its second-quarter profits to write down $1.1 billion of Greek debt.
If Germany is to continue to prosper, Europe must prosper: but a ruthless solution may have to be imposed in order for that to happen. If the European project is to continue, Germany will not merely have to underwrite it, but control it.
The recently-agreed European Financial Stability Facility is not the answer. It is just another in a series of sticking-plasters that allows the ECB to buy the bonds of debtor nations to keep them solvent.
All these sticking-plasters are designed in the belief that the wound will not become yet more gaping: but it always does.
The alternative is the massive surrender of sovereignty to Germany by the rest of the Eurozone that would allow the economic policy of Greece, Ireland and Portugal to be made in Berlin.
The recently-agreed European Financial Stability facility allows the ECB to apply sticking-plasters to some of the debtor nations, but is not the answer to the crisis
That would reassure the markets, but it would also remove any pretence of democracy in those 16 countries: for once you have lost control of your economy, you have lost your sovereignty.
Every spending department in every government in the Eurozone would have its policy made in the old capital of Prussia.
And if the people did not like their governments being left with fewer powers than a county council, that would be tough. The alternative is ruin.
Where Hitler failed by military means to conquer Europe, modern Germans are succeeding through trade and financial discipline. Welcome to the Fourth Reich.
