Otto von Bismarck and the Realm of the Holy Roman Empire
(German: Heiliges Römisches Reich).
Our Hitler:
It no longer needs to be said that he
has taken up Bismarck's work and intends to complete it. There is enough proof of this even for those who do not believe,
or who think ill of him. I therefore do not think it necessary for me to discuss the historical significance and still unknown
impact of this man on the eve of the day on which, far from the bustle of the Reich capital, Adolf Hitler completes his 44th
year. Our Hitler. Dr. Joseph Goebbels' 1933 Speech on Hitler's Birthday.
JC: Under the Iron fisted rule of Otto von Bismarck,
was initiated and seeded from the realms of Cosmic Evil, the "Third Reich."
Reich literally means Realm or Empire, that which Adolph
Hitler so ably termed the "Thousand Year Reich" for a thousand years was the symbolic and Biblical reference to its intended
standing.
The Christian hints at this when he speaks of the Christ
reigning on earth a thousand years during which the serpent is imprisoned. The Christ principle will triumph for the remainder
of the manvantara, and the lower material nature and mind will be held in abeyance until the next round. TCF 706.
The "lunar Lords return to their own place" or - as
the Christian expresses it - "Satan is bound for a thousand years," (Bible. Rev. XX, 2.) this meaning only that pralayic peace
is the lot of these entities until the return of manvantaric opportunity. TCF 878.
JC: The Black Lodge via Bismarck and Hitler intended
to bring into manifestation the opposite to the thousand year reign of the Christ. Their intention was the manifestation and
Reign or Realm of the Dark Lodge of Destruction and Materialism. The restitution of the ancient lands of the so called holy
roman empire, that expanded land of Cosmic Evil, for through their expansion of blatant cruelty and possession of "living
space" ultimately on a global scale, no disciple or Initiate could possibly be able to incarnate to manifest the kingdom of
Christ.
The entrance for what might be regarded as cosmic evil
was first opened in the decadent days of the Roman Empire (which was one reason why the Christ chose to manifest in those
days). RI 754.
One such figure in ancient times was Nero; the modern
example is Hitler. EA 585.
The restitution of lands, earlier held, directs the
acts of others. For instance: the ancient glory of the Roman Empire must be restored - at the expense of the helpless little
peoples;... German hegemony and "living space" must dominate Europe, and the German superman must be the arbiter of human
life. EXT 184.
Thus the Nazi Party used the terms "Third Reich" and
"Thousand Year Reich" to connect the allegedly glorious past to its supposedly glorious future... The term Roman Empire was
used in 1034 to denote the lands under Conrad II, and Holy Empire in 1157. The use of the term Roman Emperor to refer to Northern
European rulers started earlier with Otto II (Emperor 973–983). Emperors from Charlemagne (died 814) to Otto I the Great
(Emperor 962–973) had simply used the phrase Imperator Augustus ("August Emperor"). The precise term Holy Roman Empire
dates from 1254; the full expression Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (German Heiliges Römisches Reich deutscher Nation)
appears in 1512, after several variations in the late 15th century. wikipedia.org
Italy has a sixth ray soul and hence her devotion to
her past and to the ancient "glory which was Rome" (for this is closely tied up with the memory aspect of the soul) and to
the concept of the restoration of the Roman Empire. DN 59.
And we, the teachers on the inner side, who for aeons
have aided in the preparation of humanity for the coming age of peaceful cooperation and brotherhood, see all this future
hope imperilled.
Aggression and the rape of peaceful nations go steadily
forward, as nation after nation crumbles under the iron heel of Germany, grinding the peoples of the world and sweeping them
into slavery on a scale of serfdom and cruelty that the world has never before seen.
As those who sought to arrest German progress succumb
to treachery and pain and desert their comrades, the machine of evil marches on; neutral nations, resting back upon their
peaceful intent and the claims of civilization, are absorbed by the forces which impose the German demand for living space,
and are thus denuded of liberty, of territory, and of all economic resources. EXT 235.
The contrast is the enforced world order, emphasized
by the so-called "German super-race," which will centralize the world around Germany, for the aggrandizement of Germany, for
the expansion of the German living space and the supply of Germany's economic need - an order enforced by terror, by cruelty
and death. EXT 237.
"Coming forth correspondingly from the "realm of cosmic
evil", and responsible for the focus of materialism upon the planet today was Bismarck.
They are both types of the 'most powerful Avatars'
which humanity itself has as yet produced. They emerge along the lines of government, of the first ray and in the department
of the Manu, and are very sensitive to Shamballa force. Such Avatars frequently emerge at the founding of a nation. This is
true of both Bismarck and Lincoln." EXH 298.
The Iron Chancellor of Germany:
Under the "Iron Chancellor", Otto von Bismarck, Germany
grew from a loose confederation of weak states to a unified powerful empire. His smart and dashing way of making politics
(winning three wars in eight years!) led to the extension of German borders and the rapid growth of German industry.
Bismarck was born on April 1, 1815, in the aristocratic
family of estate owners at Schoenhausen in Prussia. He went to the prestige school in Berlin, and then studied law in Hanover.
Bismarck was not an outstanding student, and spent much of his time drinking with his fellows in an aristocratic fraternity.
After the university he enrolled into the Prussian civil service where he did not stay long because of the boredom inevitably
cast by the bureaucracy. He didn't appear in the politics till 1847. Meanwhile, he spent 8 comfortable years helping his father
manage the estate. He also married Johanna von Puttkamer in these years. His wife came from a conservative aristocratic family,
which was greatly to Bismarck's liking, who later entered German politics as an archconservative. The marriage was a very
happy one.
Bismarck's political views in the beginning of his
career were those of a typical country squire. He soon joined the conservative Gerlach group who stood for the noble estate
and defended it from the bureaucratic centralization. When the democratic revolutions swept across Europe and reached Berlin
in 1848, his first impulse was to arm the peasants of his estate in defense of King and the country. However in a very short
time he realized that being principled and tradition-bound like the reactionary Gerlach group was not enough. At that time
Bismarck's ideas became very pragmatic, and concrete interests plus the power to defend them were his chief care. In 1849
he was elected to the Prussian Chamber of Deputies. When the democratic revolution in the central Europe was defeated, Bismarck,
despite his archconservative ideas, was not willing to maintain the status quo according to which Austria preserved its hegemony
in the German Confederation. Bismarck's goal was to make Prussia the dominating power in Germany and the northern Europe.
To achieve this, he was ready to start a war with Austria.
After having served as a Prussian ambassador in Russia
and France for 11 years, Bismarck was appointed the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of Prussia in 1862. During
next 4 years in the office Bismarck implemented serious military reforms and announced that Prussia could use its military
force for achieving national unification. In 1865 a quick and successful war between Prussia and Denmark solved the old conflict
over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. According to the Convention of Gastein, Schleswig from then on was to be administered
by Prussia, and Holstein - by Austria. Next half the year Bismarck dedicated to the negotiations with Austria about giving
up the dominance in Germany. As before, Bismarck's main goal was to make Prussia dominate in Germany. His peaceful efforts
to solve the problem failed, and there was the last way remaining: not by speeches and resolutions, but by blood and iron.
In the middle of 1866 Prussian army entered Holstein, Austria sent its own troops to fight with the Prussians, and within
a few weeks Austria was defeated. The whole Europe kept wondering how Prussia managed to put Austria off the German throne
in such a short time! As a result, according to the Peace of Nikolsburg, Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, and Frankfurt were
annexed to German confederation.
http://www.germanculture.com.ua/library/weekly/aa092000a.htm
Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck (April 1, 1815 - July
30, 1898) was the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia (1862 - 1890); he unified Germany with a series of wars and became
the first Chancellor (1871 - 1890) of the German Empire. Initially a deeply conservative, aristocratic, and monarchist politician,
Bismarck fought the growing social democracy movement in the 1880s by outlawing several organizations and pragmatically instituting
mandatory old-age pensions, health- and accident insurances for workers.
He was born in Schönhausen and studied law at Göttingen
and Berlin. He married Johanna von Puttkamer in 1847 in a long and happy marriage that produced 3 children.
Delighted after the failure of the revolution of 1848,
he was elected to the Prussian parliament in 1849. Appointed to represent Prussia in Frankfurt, Bismarck slowly became convinced
that a Prussian-led unified German nation was an important goal (this was considered a liberal objective at the time). Subsequently,
he worked as ambassador in Russia and Paris. In 1862, the Prussian king Wilhelm I appointed him Prime Minister and Foreign
Minister of Prussia, as part of a conflict between the increasingly liberal Prussian parliament and the king.
Bismarck then succeeded in unifying Germany by initiating
several wars. First, in cooperation with Austria, Schleswig and Holstein were conquered from Denmark in the Second War of
Schleswig; a peace treaty was concluded in Vienna on October 30, 1864. Although already in 1865 Austria was pressured to let
Prussia take care of these northern lands, in 1866 he attacked Austria and won quickly at the Battle of Königgratz, annexing
Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, and Frankfurt to Prussia and forming the North German Confederation.
After Bismarck provoked France, the Franco-Prussian
War broke out in 1870 and the southern German states, viewing France as the aggressor, joined the North German Confederation.
France suffered a humiliating defeat, and Wilhelm I was crowned German Emperor in Versailles in 1871. Bismarck thus largely
created the Prussia-led 1871 GERMAN EMPIRE, at the exclusion of Austria.
Celebrated as a national hero, Bismarck was the first
Reichskanzler (Chancellor) of the new Empire. In foreign policy, he now devoted himself to keeping peace among the European
powers of France, Austria, Germany and Russia. Bismarck's belief was that Germany's central location in Europe would cause
it to be devastated in case of any war.
Internally, he was concerned about the emergence of
two new parties: the Catholic Centre Party and the Social Democratic Party. The campaign against Catholicism that started
in 1872, called Kulturkampf, was largely a failure. He attacked the social democrats in two ways: the party and its organizations
were outlawed, while the working class was appeased with (very progressive) legislation guaranteeing accident and health insurance
as well as old-age pensions.
In the elections of 1890, both the Catholic Centre
and the Social Democrats made great gains, and Bismarck resigned at the insistence of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had risen to
the throne in 1888. Bismarck spent his last years gathering his memoirs and died 1898 in Friedrichsruh. www.brainyencyclopedia.com
Otto von Bismarck, "Founder" of the German Empire:
Otto von Bismarck, born on April 1, 1815 at Schönhausen,
is considered the founder of the German Empire. For nearly three decades he shaped the fortunes of Germany, from 1862 to 1873
as prime minister of Prussia and from 1871 to 1890 as Germany’s first Chancellor. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary
of his death on July 30, 1898, German News remembers the great German statesman.
After reading law at the Universities of Göttingen
and Berlin, Otto von Bismarck entered Prussian service and became a judicial administrator at Aachen. Bismarck gained prominence
in 1851 when he was chosen to represent Prussia in the Federal diet. In 1859 he was sent as ambassador to Russia, from where
he was recalled in March 1862 to become ambassador to France. However, already after 6 months in September 1862, Bismarck
returned to Berlin as prime minister of Prussia when he devoted himself to the task of uniting Germany. In the war of 1866
he succeeded in defeating Austria and excluding it altogether from Germany. Also the Franco-German War (1870-71) ended with
Prussian success.
This victory instigated the kingdoms of Bavaria, Württemberg,
Baden and Hesse to join the North German Alliance, an alliance of Prussia and 17 northern German states created by Bismarck
in 1866, which led to the declaration of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich) in 1870 and the proclamation of King William
I of Prussia as German Emperor in Versailles in 1871. The imperial constitution was declared in April 1871. Bismarck was appointed
imperial chancellor. The chancellor of the Reich was not responsible to parliament but to the Emperor. The Reichstag, the
imperial parliament, was convened by uni versal, equal, direct and secret elections. Next to the Emperor, it was the second
most important institution. However, its political influence was limited to the area of legislation. It exerted only a very
small influence over the formation of governments and government policy. Characteristic of the Reich was the „government
over the parties" and the restriction of the peoples’ representation to a position in which it was only able to express
a non-binding opinion on important political questions. The system was described at the time as a „chancellor dictatorship".
It was Bismarck as Imperial Chancellor who decided upon policy outlines and who proposed the appointment and dismissal of
state secretaries who were in turn responsible for the administration of the ministries of the Reich.
Bismarck’s greatest achievements, however, were
the administrative reforms, developing a common currency, a central bank, and a single code of commercial and civil law for
Germany. Bismarck also became the first statesman in Europe to devise a comprehensive scheme of social security to counter
the Social Democrats, offering workers insurance against accident, sickness and old age. In foreign affairs, he, as a master
of alliances and counter-alliances, presided over the Congress of Berlin (1872) and this seemed to symbolise his paramount
position as mediator between the then great powers such as Russia, Austria, France, Great Britain. An alliance with Austria-Hungary
(1879) marked a new period of conservatism in Bismarck’s foreign policy.
But by 1890 his policies began to come under attack.
On March 18, 1890 two years after Emperor William II’s accession, Bismarck was forced to resign. His last years were
devoted to composing his memoirs. www.germanembassy-india.org/news
Robinson's Note: Bismarck’s fears that the
king and his advisors would be intoxicated by the brilliant victory over Austria and would wish to press on, and perhaps lose
much in the end, were justified. He tells in his memoirs how, although outvoted in the council, he had his own way after all.
[Page
584] On July 23, under the presidency of the king, a council of war was held, in which the question to be decided was whether
we should make peace under the conditions offered or continue the war. A painful illness from which I was suffering made it
necessary that the council should be held in my room. On this occasion I was the only civilian in uniform. I declared it to
be my conviction that peace must be concluded on the Austrian terms, but remained alone in my opinion; the king supported
the military majority.
My nerves could not stand the strain which had been
put upon them day and night; I got up in silence, walked into my adjoining bedchamber, and was there overcome by a violent
paroxysm of tears. Meanwhile I heard the council dispersing in the next room. I thereupon set to work to commit to paper the
reasons which, in my opinion, spoke for the conclusion of peace, and begged the king, in the event of his not accepting the
advice for which I was responsible, to relieve me of my functions if the war were continued.
I set out with this document on the following day to
explain it by word of mouth. In the antechamber I found two colonels with a report on the spread of cholera among their troops,
barely half of whom were fit for service. These alarming figures confirmed my resolve to make the acceptance of the Austrian
terms a cabinet question. Besides my political anxieties, I feared that by transferring operations to Hungary, the nature
of that country, which was well known to me, would soon make the disease overwhelming. The climate, especially in August,
is dangerous; there is great lack of water; the country villages are widely distributed, each with many square miles of open
fields attached; and, finally, plums and melons grow there in abundance. Our campaign of 1792 in Champagne was in my mind
as a warning example; on that occasion it was not the French but dysentery which caused our retreat. Armed with my documents
I unfolded to the king the political and military reasons which opposed the continuation of the war.
We had to avoid wounding Austria too severely; we had
to avoid leaving behind in her any unnecessary bitterness of [Page 585] feeling or desire for revenge; we ought rather to
reserve the possibility of becoming friends again with our adversary of the moment, and in any case to regard the Austrian
state as a piece on the European chessboard and the renewal of friendly relations as a move open to us. If Austria were severely
injured, she would become the ally of France and of every other opponent of ours; she would even sacrifice her anti-Russian
interests for the sake of revenge on Prussia.
On the other hand, I could not see any guarantee for
us in the future of the countries constituting the Austrian monarchy, in case the latter were split up by risings of the Hungarians
and Slavs or made permanently dependent on those peoples. What would be substituted for that portion of Europe which the Austrian
state had hitherto occupied from Tyrol to Bukowina? Fresh formations on this surface could only be of a permanently revolutionary
nature. German Austria we could neither wholly nor partly make use of. The acquisition of provinces like Austrian Silesia
and portions of Bohemia could not strengthen the Prussian state; it would not lead to an amalgamation of German Austria with
Prussia, and Vienna could not be governed from Berlin as a mere dependency.
….To all this the king raised no objection, but
declared the actual terms as inadequate, without however definitely formulating his own demands. Only so much was clear, that
his claims had grown considerably since July 4. He that the chief culprit could not be allowed to escape unpunished, and that,
justice once satisfied, we could let the misled backsliders off more easily; and he insisted on the cessions of territory
from Austria which I have already mentioned.
I replied that we were not there to sit in judgment,
but to pursue the German policy. Austria's conflict and rivalry with us was no more culpable than ours with her; our task
was the establishment or foundation of German national unity under the leadership of the king of Prussia.
Passing on to the German states, the king spoke of
various acquisitions by cutting down the territories of all our [Page 586] opponents. I repeated that we were not there to
administer retributive justice, but to pursue a policy; that I wished to avoid in the German federation of the future the
sight of mutilated territories, whose princes and peoples might very easily (such is human weakness) retain a lively wish
to recover their former possessions by means of foreign aid.
Bismarck's Memoirs [Excerts]:
Robinson's Note: Bismarck describes in his memoirs
the way in which he precipitated what he believed to be an unavoidable war with France. The Prussian king was at Ems, a well-known
watering place, when the French ambassador, Benedetti, approached him and demanded that the king should pledge himself never
to permit the Hohenzollern prince to become a candidate again for the Spanish throne [1]. This William refused to do, and
as his patience was worn out by the importunities of the French ministry, he sent word to Benedetti that he would not see
him again. He telegraphed the news of this to Bismarck, with permission to publish it in the newspapers if he wished. Upon
the receipt of the message, Bismarck says:
[Page 589] All considerations, conscious and unconscious, strengthened my opinion
that war could only be avoided at the cost of the honor of Prussia and of the national confidence in her. Under this conviction
I made use of the royal authorization communicated to me through Abeken to publish the contents of the telegram; and in the
presence of my two guests [General Moltke and General Roon] I reduced the telegram by striking out words, but without adding
or altering anything, to the following form:
“After the news of the renunciation of the hereditary
prince of Hohenzollern had been officially communicated to the imperial government of France by the royal government of Spain,
the French ambassador at Ems made the further demand of his Majesty the king that he should authorize him to telegraph to
Paris that his Majesty the king bound himself for all future time never again to give his consent if the Hohenzollerns should
renew their candidature. His Majesty the king thereupon decided not to receive the French ambassador again, and sent to tell
him, through the aid-de-camp on duty, that his Majesty had nothing further to communicate to the ambassador."
The difference in the effect of the abbreviated text
of the Ems telegram as compared with that produced by the original was not the result of stronger words, but of the form,
which made this announcement appear decisive, while Abeken’s version would only have been regarded as a fragment of
a negotiation still pending and to be continued at Berlin.
After I had read out the concentrated edition to my
two guests, Moltke remarked: “Now it has a different ring; in its original form it sounded like a parley; now it is
like a [Page 590] flourish in answer to a challenge." I went on to explain: “If , in execution of his Majesty's order,
I at once communicate this text, which contains no alteration in or addition to the telegram, not only to the newspapers,
but also by telegraph to all our embassies, it will be known in Paris before midnight, and not only on account of its contents,
but also on account of the manner of its distribution, will have the effect of a red rag upon the Gallic bull.
“Fight we must if we do not want to act the part
of the vanquished without a battle. Success, however, depends essentially upon the impression which the origination of the
war makes upon us and others; it is important that we should be the ones attacked, and the Gallic insolence and touchiness
will bring about this result if we announce in the face of Europe, so far as we can without the speaking tube of the Reichstag,
that we fearlessly meet the public threats of France."
This explanation brought about in the two generals
a revulsion to a more joyous mood, the liveliness of which surprised me. They had suddenly recovered their pleasure in eating
and drinking and spoke in a more cheerful vein. Roon said, “Our God of old still lives, and will not let us perish in
disgrace." Moltke so far relinquished his passive equanimity that, glancing up joyously toward the ceiling and abandoning
his usual punctiliousness of speech, he smote his hand upon his breast and said, “If I may but live to lead our armies
in such a war, then the devil may come directly afterwards and fetch away the old carcass." Footnotes
[1] See History of
Western Europe, p. 662, note (Vol. II, p. 310, note).
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/bis.html
Bismarck thus largely created the Prussia-led 1871
GERMAN EMPIRE, at the exclusion of Austria.
Celebrated as a national hero, Bismarck was the first
Reichskanzler (Chancellor) of the new Empire.
declaration of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich)
in 1870 and the proclamation of King William I of Prussia as German Emperor in Versailles in 1871. The imperial constitution
was declared in April 1871. Bismarck was appointed imperial chancellor.
The chancellor of the Reich was not responsible to
parliament but to the Emperor. The Reichstag, the imperial parliament, was convened by uni versal, equal, direct and secret
elections.
Characteristic of the Reich was the „government
over the parties" and the restriction of the peoples’ representation to a position in which it was only able to express
a non-binding opinion on important political questions. The system was described at the time as a "chancellor dictatorship".
www.germanembassy-india.org/news
Reich is the German word for "realm" or "empire", cognate
with Scandinavian rike and Dutch rijk. It is the word traditionally used for sovereign entities, including Germany. For instance,
any country with a King or Queen as head of state, such as Britain, is a Königreich (kingdom). It is still used as a suffix
in certain country names, for instance Frankreich (France).
The term Reich was part of the official names of Germany
over centuries. The German name for "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" (mid 10th century - 1806) is Heiliges Römisches
Reich Deutscher Nation. Later, Deutsches Reich was the official name of Germany from 1871 to 1945, although its three very
different political systems are commonly referred to as the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933),
and finally the Third Reich (Nazi Germany) (1933–1945).
The Holy Roman Empire should not be mistaken for the
Roman Empire (31 B.C.–476 A.D.)
The Holy Roman Empire (German: Heiliges Römisches Reich)
was a political conglomeration of lands in western and central Europe in the Middle Ages. Emerging from the eastern part of
the Frankish realm after its division in the Treaty of Verdun (843), it formally lasted almost a millennium until its dissolution
in 1806.
Contemporary terminology for the Empire varied greatly
over the centuries. The term Roman Empire was used in 1034 to denote the lands under Conrad II, and Holy Empire in 1157. The
use of the term Roman Emperor to refer to Northern European rulers started earlier with Otto II (Emperor 973–983). Emperors
from Charlemagne (died 814) to Otto I the Great (Emperor 962–973) had simply used the phrase Imperator Augustus ("August
Emperor"). The precise term Holy Roman Empire dates from 1254; the full expression Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
(German Heiliges Römisches Reich deutscher Nation) appears in 1512, after several variations in the late 15th century.
The Nazis, eager to present their rule as a continuation
of a Germanic past, used the term Das Dritte Reich (“The Third Reich”), counting the Holy Roman Empire as the
first and the 1871 Empire as the second. They also used the political slogan "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" ("One people,
one country, one leader").
A number of words used by the Nazis which earlier were
neutral have later taken on a negative connotation in German (e.g. Führer or Heil); the word "Reich" is usually not one of
them, although in certain contexts it does carry a connotation of German imperialism. The word is still used with the Reichstag
building, which again, since 1999, houses the German federal parliament (today called Bundestag), and for the old Reichstag
institution.
The German name of Austria is Österreich, or "Eastern
Reich".
The German version of the Lord's Prayer uses the words
Dein Reich komme for "thy kingdom come".
Nazi Germany or the Third Reich commonly refers to
Germany in the years between 1933 and 1945, when it was under the firm control of Adolf Hitler's dictatorship and the totalitarian
ideology of National Socialism (a variant of fascism).
The term Nazi is a short form of the German Nationalsozialismus;
the ideology was institutionalized in the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), the National Socialist German
Workers' Party, or Nazi Party for short.
Third Reich is an Anglicization of the German expression
Drittes Reich, and is used as a synonym for Nazi Germany. The term was adopted by Nazi propaganda, which counted the Holy
Roman Empire as the first Reich, the 1871-1918 German Empire the second, and its own regime as the third. This was done in
order to suggest a return to alleged former German glory after the perceived failure of the 1919 Weimar Republic.
The Third Reich was sometimes also referred to as the
"Thousand Year Reich", as it was intended by its founder, Adolf Hitler, to stand for one thousand years, as in the case of
the Holy Roman Empire. The Nazi Party attempted to combine traditional symbols of Germany with Nazi Party symbols in an effort
to reinforce the perception of them as being one and the same. Thus the Nazi Party used the terms "Third Reich" and "Thousand
Year Reich" to connect the allegedly glorious past to its supposedly glorious future. Initially Hitler's plans seemed to be
well on their way to fruition. At its height, the Third Reich controlled the greater part of Europe. However, due to the defeat
by the Allied powers in World War II, the Thousand Year Reich in fact lasted only 12 years (from 1933 through to 1945).
During their 12-year rule, the Nazis sent massive armies
throughout almost all of continental Europe (with the exception of portions of Switzerland, Scandinavia, Spain, and the land
near the Ural Mountains,). As part of this, the Nazis endorsed the idea of a Greater Germania, and integration of all people
of supposed pure Germanic origin. There was irony in this, in that due to millennia of wars and conflict, there are very few
European societies which have not interbred with other societies. This policy manifested itself in the death of 11 million
racial minorities and other social outcasts, as well as tens of millions of others as a direct or indirect result of combat.
The disorder and poverty caused in the wake of World War I allowed the Nazis to easily seize power, and take advantage of
former foes who had no taste for more bloodshed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reich
