Das "Dritte Reich" im Dritten Reich. Der Topos "Drittes Reich" in der nationalsozialistischen Ideologie und Staatslehre

In: Der Staat: Zeitschrift für Staatslehre und Verfassungsgeschichte, deutsches und europäisches öffentliches Recht, Band 42, Heft 4, S. 600-627

Abstract

The term the "Third Reich" came to signify Nazi Germany, although from a constitutional perspective, no Third Reich ever existed. The term was obtained from a 1923 book by the little-known author Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, a member of a nonpartisan but nationally conservative-oriented group, who died in 1924. The utopian book was based on the idea that the "Western" ideas of liberal democratic parliamentarianism & party mastery caused the misery of the Weimar era, & a third conservative party was required to inspire the masses & revolutionize against the national & social Right & Left. The political setting of the Weimar era & the Christian & historical overtones of the volume were important aspects to its influence. While Bruck was not a fore-thinker of National Socialism (NS), Hitler deliberately portrayed him as a foreteller of a New Germany. However, after Hitler's consolidation of power in 1939, use of the term was discontinued within Germany in order to portray Hitler as sole developer of an ideology separate from the previous traditions. Use of the term Reich was considered psychologically unacceptable when the German Federal Republic was established. L. Kehl