Hitler’s view of the Holy Roman Empire

[GameBawesome]

The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in Central Europe, until it was dissolved by Napoleon in 1806.

Hitler had a idea of a Greatee Germanic Reich, across all of Europe.

But what was Hitler’s view on the Holy Roman Empire?

Did he saw it as a true Germanic State? Or did he was he absolutely hated it?

 

[clifton]

Nazi Germany called itself the third Reich. The second Reich is imperial Germany (1871-1918), the first Reich is the Holy Roman Empire. So it is save to say that he saw it as a germanic state.

 

[David T]

Nazi Germany called itself the third Reich. The second Reich is imperial Germany (1871-1918), the first Reich is the Holy Roman Empire. So it is save to say that he saw it as a germanic state.

But...

"AND THEN there is the question of what exactly makes an empire an empire. The year following Hitler’s annexation of Austria and acquisition of the imperial regalia, the Nazi high command ordered all official organizations to stop referring to the regime as the “Third Reich.” In effect, the Nazis were declaring the First Reich a nonempire on the grounds that it was too holy, too Roman and not German enough by half. Ergo, it wasn’t really an empire at all—a grotesque but logical extension of von Ranke’s less rabid critique at an earlier, less brutal phase of German nationalism..." https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-real-thousand-year-reich-18143?page=0,1

OTOH, another source states that Hitler wanted the phrase "Third Reich" no longer applied after 1939 for a different reason--it could lead observers to speculate about a "Fourth Reich" and to question the continuity of the German Reich. https://books.google.com/books?id=0RuDCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA506

 

[Kalvan]

Technically, he regarded the Ottonian dynasty to be the First Reich, and its end to be the Revolt of the Slavs. He fully subscribed to the saying that the Medieval Elective German Kingdom was "Neither Holy, nor Roman, nor in any way an Empire."