Everything about Reich totally explained
(;
German ), is a
German loanword cognate with the English
reign,
region, and
rich, but used most to designate an
empire,
realm, or
nation. The qualitative connotation from the German is "imperial, sovereign state." It is
cognate with the
Scandinavian rike/
rige,,, ; as found in bishopric. It is the word traditionally used for a variety of sovereign entities, including
Germany in many periods of its history. It is also found in the compound, "kingdom" (Königtum), and in the country names (
France, lit. "the Realm of the
Franks"), (
Austria, the "Eastern Realm") and (
Sweden, the "Realm of the
Swedes"). The German version of the
Lord's Prayer uses the words for "" (usually translated as "
thy kingdom come" in English), and the Lord's Prayer in Scandinavian also uses the cognate word.
Used adjectivally, is the German word for "rich".
Like its
Latin counterpart,,
Reich doesn't necessarily connote a
monarchy; the
Weimar Republic and
Nazi Germany continued to use the name
Deutsches Reich.
Reich, German
The term
Reich was part of the German names for Germany for much of its history. Reich was used by itself in the common German variant of the
Holy Roman Empire, the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" .
Der rîche was a title for the Emperor. However, it should be noted that Latin, not German, was the formal legal language of the medieval Empire, so English-speaking historians are more likely to use Latin than German as a term for this period of German history.
The unified Germany which arose under Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck in 1871 was called in German . This remained the official name of Germany until 1945, although these years saw three very different political systems more commonly referred to in English as: "the
German Empire" (1871–1918), the
Weimar Republic (1919–1933; the term is a postwar coinage not used at the time), and
Nazi Germany (the Third Reich) (1933–1945). After 1918 "Reich" was usually not translated as "Empire" in English-speaking countries, and the title was instead simply used in its original German. During the Weimar Republic the term "" and the prefix "" referred not to the idea of empire but rather to the institutions, officials, affairs etc. of the whole country as opposed to those of one of its constituent federal states.
Das Reich meant the legal persona of the (federal) State, similar to
The Crown designating the State (and its treasury) in Commonwealth countries.
The
Nazis sought to legitimize their power historiographically by portraying their rule as a continuation of a Germanic past. They coined the term ("The Third Empire" – usually rendered in English in the partial-translation "
The Third Reich"), counting the Holy Roman Empire as the first and the 1871-1918 monarchy as the second. During the
Anschluss (annexation) of
Austria in 1938 the Nazi propaganda also used the
political slogan Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer ("One people, one
Reich, one leader"). Although the term "Third Reich" is in common use, the terms "First Reich" and "Second Reich" for the earlier periods are seldom found outside Nazi propaganda. To use the terms "First Reich" and "Second Reich", as some commentators did in the post-war years, is generally frowned upon as accepting Nazi
historiography. The term ("old Reich"; cf. French
ancien regime for monarchical France) is sometimes used to refer to the
Holy Roman Empire.
A number of previously neutral words used by the Nazis have later taken on negative connotations in German (for example or ); while in many contexts isn't one of them (
reich, rich;
Frankreich, France), it can imply German
imperialism or strong
nationalism if it's used to describe a political or governmental entity. has thus not been used in official terminology since 1945, though it's still found in the name of the
Reichstag building, which since 1999 has housed the German federal
parliament, the
Bundestag. The decision not to rename the Reichstag building was taken only after long debate in the Bundestag; even then, it's described officially as (Reichstag, seat of the Bundestag).
The exception is that during the
Cold War, the
East German railway incongruously continued to use the name
Deutsche Reichsbahn (German National Railways), which had been the name of the national railway during the era of the Weimar Republic and Third Reich. This is because the Reichsbahn was specifically mentioned in several postwar treaties and directives regarding the right to operate the railroad in
West Berlin; had the East German government changed the name of the railways to, for example,
Staatsbahn der DDR (State Railways of the GDR), it would likely have lost this right. Even after
German reunification in October 1990, the Reichsbahn continued to exist for over three years as the operator of the railroad in eastern Germany, ending finally on
1 January 1994 when the Reichsbahn and the western
Deutsche Bundesbahn were merged to form the privatized
Deutsche Bahn AG.
Rike, rige
Rike is the
Swedish and
Norwegian word for "
realm", in
Danish spelled
rige, of similar meaning as
German Reich. The word is traditionally used for sovereign entities; a country with a King or Queen as
head of state, such as the
United Kingdom or
Sweden itself, is a
(kunga)rike, literally a "royal realm".
The word is used in "Svea rike", with the current spelling
Sverige, the name of Sweden in
Swedish. It is also present in the names of institutions such as the
Riksdag,
Sveriges Riksbank,
Riksgäldskontoret, Riksåklagaren,
Rikspolisstyrelsen, Riksteatern,
riksdaler, etc. The word is often used synonymously to
nation, as in
rikstäckande, nationwide.
The
Lord's Prayer uses the words in the Swedish version —
Tillkomme ditt rike (Thy kingdom come).
Rijk
Rijk is the
Dutch equivalent of German
Reich. In a political sense in the Netherlands the word
rijk often connotates a connection with the
Kingdom of the Netherlands; the
ministerraad is the executive body of the
Netherlands' government and the
rijksministerraad that of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands, a similar distinction is found in
wetten (laws) versus
rijkswetten (kingdom laws). The word
rijk can also be found in institutions like
Rijkswaterstaat,
Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu, and
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
Like in German, the adjective
rijk means "rich".
Etymology and cognates
Reich comes from a
Germanic word for "king", which was borrowed from
Celtic. (See Calvert Watkins,
American Heritage dictionary of Indo-European Roots, p.70.) It has
cognates in many other languages, all ultimately descended from the
Proto-Indo-European root
*reg-, meaning "to straighten out" or "rule", also the source of English
right. The
Sanskrit derived cognates in
Hindi are "Raja" meaning King and also the name of an ethnic group:
Rajput meaning progeny of Rajas. The cognates can be grouped linguistically as follows:
Celtic group
Proto-Celtic *rīg-, "king", from the lengthened e-grade (see:
Indo-European ablaut). Borrowed into Germanic as
*rīks-. Hence:
Original Germanic group
Although the line of descent of
Reich and its closest cognates came into Germanic sideways from Celtic, Germanic also inherited the same Indo-European root directly in a suffixed form of the e-grade,
*reg-to-, hence:
Old High German: rihte; Modern German Recht, "justice"; rechts, "right"; richtig, "correct"; Richter, "judge"; Gericht, "court".
Old English: riht; Modern English: right; righteous.
Latin
The basic e-grade form of the root came into Latin as: (supine stem ), "to rule"; rex,, "king";, "kingly". A suffixed, lengthened e-grade form, *rēg-ola- gives us Latin, "rod". Hence:
"king", "law, right" and many others.
"king"
"king"
"to govern, to rule", "government", "law, rule"
English (straight from Latin): regent; regal; regulate; rector; rectangle; erect; (borrowed via French): royal, reign; viceroy; realm; ruler (both senses) and countless others.
Sanskrit
The Sanskrit word, from a lengthened-grade suffixed form *rēg-en-, is rājā, "king", hence the words for rulers in various Indian languages. Of interest to English speakers: Raj, used of the British rule in India; and Maharaja, literally "the great king" (exactly parallel to Latin ).
Slavonic
These words are all loanwards deriving from Old High German dialects and include Slavonic phonetic innovations (like the change from r into ř-sound and soft Germanic "ch" into Slavonic "š" (like the "sh" in "she").
The PIE root "*reg-" (rule) is non-existent in Slavonic. There is also no native Slavic root for "king" and "kingdom" or similar words, probably because the early Slavic societies were highly democratic and ruled by an ancient form of parliament "wiec". Hence, Slavonic words generally meaning "king" derive from the name of Charlemagne in Old French, "Karol". Similarly, the words that mean more or less the aristocratic title "prince" come from Gothic "kunings" (with many local phonetic changes, for example "knędz" in Old Polish, "książę" in Polish and "kniaz'" in Ruthenian).
- nowadays often associated with "Trzecia Rzesza" (The Third Reich) in colloquial speech; second meaning: "a great group of people, throng, mob"
Further Information
Get more info on 'Reich'.
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