Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany, often referred to as The Third Reich was a common English term for Germany under the rule of Adolf Hitler. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich ("Greater German Reich") from 1943 to 1945. The term Third Reich was adopted by Nazi propaganda as Drittes Reich, which was first used in a 1923 book by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck. The book counted the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) as the first Reich and the German Empire (1871–1918) as the second. The Nazis used it to legitimize their regime as a successor state. After they seized power, Nazi propaganda retroactively referred to the Weimar Republic as the Zwischenreich ("Interim Reich"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany