The word Reich, German for empire, is traditionally used to designate the great empires of German history. The First Reich refers to the Holy Roman Empire, created by the Germanic descendants of Charlemagne in 962. The Second Reich was the German state created by the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty in 1871 and overthrown in 1918 after World War I. The Nazis referred to their government as part of a progression of Reichs in order to legitimize their regime and associate it with a glorious German past. In particular, they used the fact that the Holy Roman Empire had once controlled almost all of Europe to justify their intention to conquer and subjugate the whole continent.
