Deutsches Reich (German: [ˈdɔʏtʃəs ˈʀaɪç]) was the official name for Germany from 1871 to 1945 in the German language, it translates literally in English to "German Empire" and appropriately "German Realm".

As the literal English translation "German Empire" denotes a monarchy, the term is used only in reference to Germany before the fall of the monarchies at the end of World War I in 1918. To refer to the entire 1871-1945 period, the partially translated "German Reich" (/ˈdʒɜrmən ˈraɪk/), which has no monarchical connotations, is often used, with "German Realm" being a more appropriate direct translation of the official title. Informally, this nation was also simply known as Germany.

The name "Deutsches Reich" was also often applied in contemporary maps to the Holy Roman Empire (911–1806). The history of Germany during the time of the German Reich (German Realm) is conventionally broken into three distinct periods:

Like its Latin counterpart, imperium, the word reich does not necessarily connote a monarchy; the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany used the name Deutsches Reich, while both were at least de jure republican in structure.

Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry. He was the author of several notable books, including The Mass Psychology of Fascism and Character Analysis, both published in 1933.

Reich worked with Sigmund Freud in the 1920s and was a respected analyst for much of his life, focusing on character structure rather than on individual neurotic symptoms. He tried to reconcile Marxism and psychoanalysis, arguing that neurosis is rooted in the physical, sexual, economic, and social conditions of the patient, and promoted adolescent sexuality, the availability of contraceptives, abortion, and divorce, and the importance for women of economic independence. His work influenced a generation of intellectuals, including Saul Bellow, William S. Burroughs, Paul Edwards, Norman Mailer, and A. S. Neill, and shaped innovations such as Fritz Perls's Gestalt therapy, Alexander Lowen's bioenergetic analysis, and Arthur Janov's primal therapy.

Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.

A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.