Third Reich summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Third Reich.

Third Reich , Official designation for the Nazi Party’s regime in Germany from January 1933 to May 1945. The name reflects Adolf Hitler’s conception of his expansionist regime—which he predicted would last 1,000 years—as the presumed successor of the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806, the First Reich) and the German empire under the Hohenzollern dynasty (1871–1918, the Second Reich).

Newspaper coverage of the Night of the Long Knives

Night of the Long Knives Summary

Night of the Long Knives, in German history, purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler on June 30, 1934. Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization’s leaders, including Ernst Röhm. Also killed that night were hundreds of other

T4 Program Summary

T4 Program, Nazi German effort—framed as a euthanasia program—to kill incurably ill, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught, and elderly people. Adolf Hitler initiated the program in 1939, and, while it was officially discontinued in 1941, killings continued covertly until the

totalitarianism Summary

Totalitarianism, form of government that theoretically permits no individual freedom and that seeks to subordinate all aspects of individual life to the authority of the state. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini coined the term totalitario in the early 1920s to characterize the new fascist state of

Munich Agreement: Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Neville Chamberlain

Munich Agreement Summary

Munich Agreement, (September 30, 1938), settlement reached by Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy that permitted German annexation of the Sudetenland, in western Czechoslovakia. After his success in absorbing Austria into Germany proper in March 1938, Adolf Hitler looked covetously at