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Why is Nazi-Germany commonly referred to as "The Third Reich" in English? Why is reich not translated when Dritten ("third") is?

And what is the English synonym of reich? Realm?

Austria (Republik Österreich), Norway (Kongeriket Norge) and Sweden (Konungariket Sverige) all have reich (or the Norwegian/Swedish corresponding etymology related word) in their name and they all have English translations of their name.

Azor Ahai -him-
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d-b
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    'Why' is a difficult question in general. It could be because that's just how one English journalist decided to do it. – Mitch Feb 16 '19 at 16:24
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    You’ve kind of answered your own question, I suspect: Reich is not that easy to translate into English. It means a kingdom, a realm, an empire, a state, a nation… there isn’t really a good, existing word in English that captures its meaning fully, so at some point, people just borrowed the German word. ‘Third’, on the other hand, is trivial to translate, and there’s little reason not to. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 16 '19 at 16:27
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    Why is Soviet not translated? – michael.hor257k Feb 16 '19 at 18:33
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    A minor and rather irrelevant nitpick: in German, nouns are always capitalized, so the proper spelling is Reich. – Michail Feb 16 '19 at 19:54
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    I don't know the name for this phenomenon, but it's not uncommon for loanwoads to have a narrower meaning in English than they do in their source language. A similar example is salsa, which just means "sauce" in Spanish, but in English refers to specific kinds of sauces that originate from the Spanish-speaking world. – user2752467 Feb 16 '19 at 22:50
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    Why are other German words, like Kaiser and Fuhrer, not translated? – jamesqf Feb 17 '19 at 04:14
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    @JanusBahsJacquet although reich can have various meanings, in THIS specific case it very clearly means empire. – Sebastiaan van den Broek Feb 17 '19 at 05:30
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    "Realm" is a very bad translation in British English, since it means "a kingdom ruled by a monarch." https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/realm That certainly isn't an literal description of the Third Reich. – alephzero Feb 17 '19 at 11:54
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    @SebastiaanvandenBroek Does it? Sweden's Swedish name is Sverige, that is Svea Rike. Rike is the Swedish version (sam etymology) of Reich. But there is also something called The Swedish Empire (a period of around a century before 1718). In fact, the official name of Sweden is Konungariket Sverige, that is Kingdom of Sweden. In other words, "reich" actually occurs twice in that name, and in none of those cases it refers to an empire. Norway is very similar. – d-b Feb 17 '19 at 13:35
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    Note that this is specific to English, in other languages it may be customary to translate it. In Czech it surely is and it is translated by the equivalent of "empire". – Vladimir F Героям слава Feb 17 '19 at 17:40
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    Furthermore, Österreich does not refer to en empire, it refers to a kingdom in the east. East(er)realm? – d-b Feb 17 '19 at 18:51
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    English used to have a cognate to German Reich, the word "riche" which is considered obsolete by the OED. It wasn't used much past c1500 AD. It was also somewhat confused/consolidated with the Norman word riche meaning "wealthy". Somewhere along the way, the usage with the meaning "realm, kingdom, domain" fell out of use. So this left somewhat of a gap as far as a cognate translation of the German word Reich. – Mark Beadles Feb 17 '19 at 22:06
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    @jamesqf Before the First World War, Kaiser Wilhelm was called "Emperor Wilhelm" in English. Here is an example: https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Daily_Telegraph_Affair – Robert Furber Feb 18 '19 at 02:14
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    @SebastiaanvandenBroek ... it very clearly means empire. Oh yeah? Clearly to whom? I always think of it as meaning Regime. – Oscar Bravo Feb 18 '19 at 09:39
  • @MarkBeadles Your comment should be an answer. – d-b Feb 18 '19 at 12:03
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    loan words happen all the time. this is a non-question – Fattie Feb 18 '19 at 13:30
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    @jamesqf Also with these words it is English that chose not to translate them, but it surely can be done. Other languages do that. In Czech: císař, vůdce, the same words that are used for any other emperor and and any other guide or leader (horský vůdce - mountain guide). They are NOT untranslatable. BTW George V was a "Kaiser von Indien" in German. – Vladimir F Героям слава Feb 18 '19 at 14:45
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    it's the best to use in German. "Is it now "Drittes Reich" or "Dritten Reich" ?", "Don't know, just call it third Reich." (PS: it is mostly Drittes Reich and not Dritten Reich "das Dritte Reich"=the third Reich, "dem Dritten Reich"= the third Reich) – Serverfrog Feb 18 '19 at 17:14
  • @Vladimir F: Though it would be inaccurate to translate Kaiser as Emperor, since Germany wasn't really an empire. And to make things more confusing, Victoria was Queen, not Empress. of the British Empire. (Except in her formal title, where she was Empress of India - but not of the rest of the Empire :-)) – jamesqf Feb 19 '19 at 18:33
  • @jamesqf Thats why I pointed to Georg der Fuenfte, Kaiser von Indien https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_V._(Vereinigtes_K%C3%B6nigreich) . In my language the Reich is translated by the same word other empires are (like the Roman one, for example). Those words are not untranslatable. That is just a choice that may or may not be done. – Vladimir F Героям слава Feb 19 '19 at 18:47
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    @Vladimir F: Re "In my language...", that does raise the question of which language has the more accurate correspondence to the meaning of the German word. It does seem to me that the term "Third Reich" has layers of meaning beyond a simple empire. Just as nobody other than Hitler would be referred to as Fuhrer in English (and I understand in German as well), even though the word simply translates as "leader". – jamesqf Feb 20 '19 at 04:10
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    Hello EmLi. This isn't an answer so much as it's an observation of human behavior, so I'm leaving a comment. The "third reich" is something that belongs to a specific period of German history and it's something that the rest of the world, due to the animosity associated with it, does not want to own. One of the many reasons it hasn't been translated is that "we" don't want any part of it. It's "theirs," and therefore something that can be hated or admired without either emotion reflecting back on "us." – JBH Feb 20 '19 at 19:24
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    Austria is NOT a literal translation of Österreich, but an anglification of the sound of the word. . – GwenKillerby Feb 20 '19 at 20:30
  • @MarkBeadles: in German 'reich' also means 'rich', Dutch 'rijk' also has both meanings. So both those meanings seem to be cognates of riche. – RemcoGerlich Feb 21 '19 at 09:57
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    Just wanted to clarify that German has the word "Imperium" which means empire. For example, it is the official translation of the Star Wars movie "The empire strikes back" : "Das Imperium Schlägt Zurück". – Rasmus Larsen Feb 21 '19 at 10:42
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    @RasmusLarsen But Imperium Romanum is Römisches Reich. – Vladimir F Героям слава Feb 21 '19 at 16:22
  • You could ask the same question about “Bayern Munich”, and Bayern has an English translation. (Although I imagine most football commentators are unaware of it.) – David Feb 21 '19 at 21:14
  • @David WTF!? You mean English media doesn't use Bayern München's actual name when they refer to it?? I don't live in an English speaking nor German speaking country and Das dritte Reich is translated litteraly while Bayern München is called exactly that. No exceptions in any of these cases. – d-b Feb 22 '19 at 22:58
  • @EmLi — Ich spreche die Wahrheit. Lived in Germany for a year and my small son had a Bayern München badge sewn on his sweater. Later watched the increased "sophistication" of British football commentators with foreign names as the English Premier League became an international milch cow. So the commentators will talk about Sevilla now (instead of the English Seville) and Roma, Napoli (not Rome or Naples) but they are stuck on Munich. Shades of 1939 I suppose or the Manchester United air disaster, which is always called by everyone (including me) as the Munich disaster. – David Feb 22 '19 at 23:46
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – tchrist Mar 02 '19 at 01:50
  • @MarkBeadles I just learned about the expression "commonwealth realm", where, as I understand it, "realm" is used in the same way/meaning as "reich" in Third Reich. – d-b Jan 28 '24 at 23:47

9 Answers9

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Although English historians have defined Reich as being a strictly German concept of sovereign rule, in the German language itself it means "Empire". In English, we speak of the Holy Roman Empire; in German, it is the HRR or "Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation".

Wiktionary quotes Busching, who in 1762 explained Reich as a German understanding of "Eminence", from the Latin Regnum, rather than an Empire or a Realm as other cultures would understand it.

One could see it as a word used in English, Russian, Portuguese and many other languages as a designation for any kind of German kingdom, empire or absolutism, similar to how one would address a foreigner according to their origin, e.g. Senor Martinez, Monsieur Aragon. Compare it to how many cultures, including the Germans, also use the word "Commonwealth" or "Soviet Union", despite the fact that Bavaria had formed its own Union of Soviets, the Räterepublik, during the Weimar Republic.

If you're interested in knowing when the word "Third Reich" came into usage, it is worth noting that during Fascist Germany, the country's official name was Das Deutsche Reich, and in the USA and UK it was usually referred to as Germany, Hitler's Germany, Berlin, Reich or, the most popular term, Nazi Germany.

(Sources: Neville Chamberlain's declaration of war against Germany, headlines about Germany in newspapers like the NY Times or the Times, the Daily Mail's Lord Rothermere)

In Germany itself, the idea of a third Reich stemmed from the 19th century, where it was a popular philosophical theme in literature and theology. Writers like Johannes Schlaf, who wrote "Das Dritte Reich" in 1899, or the German translator of Ibsen's "The Emperor and the Galilean", popularized the idea of the imminent arrival of a thousand years of Christianity (a kind of positive apocalypse), which would follow a third "Reich". And they would quote Paul the Apostle and various saints, to make it clear that the third Reich would follow the heretic lex naturalis and the lex mosaica.

Nazi propagandists exploited this in their articles, making it sound as if the saints had had some sort of epiphany about Hitler and the Nazis. In other words, the Third Reich began as an abstract idea of a Christian revolution, but was assumed by Nazi writers in order to bolster Hitler's popularity and justify the drastic and bloody decisions that the Fascist government was making. In one of the earliest examples of the Third Reich being mentioned outside of Germany, Major Strasser in the film Casablanca talks about the Third Reich as if it was just the beginning to a kind of paradisaical future or of a fourth Reich.

After 1945, the term was used exclusively to associate only to the unsuccessful reign of Fascism in Germany, and it ceased as a philosophical or theological idea in German literary circles.

Chris W.
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    Also worth mentioning that in German, the British Empire is referred to as the Britisches Reich, or Britisches Weltreich (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britisches_Weltreich). – Joe Stevens Feb 17 '19 at 12:18
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    Also the German word for the nation of France is Frankreich. – Jim Wrubel Feb 17 '19 at 15:51
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    When it comes to Frankreich, Britisches Reich, Österreich, Osmanisches Reich, etc., these still refer to the historically political make-up of these countries. Only until relatively recently in modern history has Austria and France stopped being empires. Then again, some countries are still called a "reich" in German if they are so much as a kingdom (Königreich). – Chris W. Feb 17 '19 at 16:04
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    Wikipedia article Third Rome also states: "Nazi Germany used the term Drittes Reich (meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire"), as successor of the first realm (HRE) and the second realm (the German Empire)". It sounds especially hillarious for Russian-speaking because Russian imperialists used "Third Rome" several centuries before German nazies birthed term "Third Reich" – Alex Yu Feb 17 '19 at 19:31
  • @AlexYu The "Third Rome" is specifically meant as the third center of Christianity after Rome and Constantinople, not as an imperial center. As "The Saker" explains in a lively fashion (mature readers only): "Then, when in the 15th century, Constantinople was invaded by the Ottomans, the Roman empire truly came to an end. So, at that moment in time, which should have been considered the most important city in the Christian world? Some in Russia felt that Moscow had become the “Third Rome"... – David Tonhofer Feb 17 '19 at 20:36
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    @ChrisW. Of course Austria used to be an Archduchy, and a Duchy before, both called "Österreich", long before it became an Empire in 1804. – sgf Feb 18 '19 at 09:33
  • To be factually correct, it was not fascism as you write it in your last sentence. Fascism was the ideology / form of government in Italy. Today many people use that term to refer to anything which is more authoritarian than they would like, but it's still incorrect. – vsz Feb 18 '19 at 12:30
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    In administrational texts Reich was the name of the German state, after 1949 Reich was replaced by Bund: Reichsstraße -> Bundesstraße, Reichskanzler -> Bundeskanzler – weberjn Feb 18 '19 at 12:56
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    This answer seems to answer the question "What was the Third Reich?" (as in 'concepts' and such), not so much "Why was the term 'Reich' not translated." The German language used and uses the word "Reich" for plenty of other areas - i.e., Königreich, Kaiserreich, Tierreich, Pflanzenreich, Weltreich... and the usage as Deutsches Reich goes back to the dark ages (~960ish) with the HRRDN. To me, it seems completely plausible that the reason "Reich" is not translated in english is the same as any other word (Kindergarten, Rucksack, ...) which may have completely linguistic explanations... – AnoE Feb 19 '19 at 11:44
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    @vsz actually, Fascism describes a pan-European political movement that was started by Mussolini in the 1920's, but was adopted by the NSDAP (among other European parties). Hitler and other Nazi party members identified themselves as Fascist. Hitler famously met with Mussolini in 1940 to swap ideas. What you're thinking of is Italian Fascism, of which Nazism could be seen as a Germanocentric, anti-Semitic offspring. – Chris W. Feb 19 '19 at 18:11
  • @AnoE I actually wrote exactly that in my answer. In fact, the first half of my answer touches upon the reason why Reich and certain other foreign words (like addresses such as Senor or Monsieur) are often if not always left untranslated. The rest of my answer goes into detail as to the history of the usage of the word Reich and the phrase Third Reich in English. – Chris W. Feb 19 '19 at 18:14
  • @AnoE As for words like Kindergarten, those are German inventions, and it is customary to leave foreign-made creations or discoveries untranslated. We also keep words like robot, pyjamas, oboe, roulette, progrom, satin... all of which are translatable, but retain the names from their creators' cultures nonetheless. At least, this is customary in English (and in Russian and French -- in German, oddly enough, this is rarely the case). – Chris W. Feb 19 '19 at 18:27
  • "to make it clear that the third Reich would follow the heretic lex naturalis and the lex mosaica." Follow as in observe, or follow as in come after? – Acccumulation Feb 19 '19 at 21:47
  • "One could see it as a word used in English, Russian, Portuguese"... agreed: in Portuguese we call it "o terceiro Reich". Calling it "o terceiro império" (that is, translating reich as well) not only sounds very strange but also people will not get the meaning, they'll think it's a new Star Wars movie. – Gerardo Furtado Feb 20 '19 at 12:43
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    Rich people are also called "reich" in German (please note the lower case R). – Bodo Thiesen Feb 21 '19 at 01:03
  • Concerning your assertion that "Nazi Germany" was the most popular term during WWII, I did a quick Google ngram search and it seems that, at least in that corpus, "third reich" and "nazi germany" have been about tied in popularity since their introduction, with the former term slightly ahead in the period from 1932 to 1940. Using the British-only or the American-only corpora doesn't seem to change the results much. – Ilmari Karonen Feb 21 '19 at 12:24
  • The theological angle seems quite absurd. now, at lest every Sunday all Christians in German speaking lands pray for the return/arrival of a/the Reich You should either expand & differentiate the incongruency or perhaps just delete that aspect? – LаngLаngС Feb 21 '19 at 15:21
  • @Acccumulation In the sense that it would come after the other two periods. – Chris W. Feb 23 '19 at 08:48
  • @BodoThiesen Yep, presumably from the same origin, the Latin "regnum", or eminence. – Chris W. Feb 23 '19 at 08:49
  • @IlmariKaronen I don't put much stock into Google Ngram unless I was looking for truly esoteric terms or modern slang words or some such. Ngram is pretty bad for looking for dated texts especially newspapers, which aren't even available through Google, but can only be accessed by member-only archives. That's why I did my own research. If you find an American or British newspaper that introduced Third Reich in, say, 1933, please let me know and I'll edit my answer – Chris W. Feb 23 '19 at 08:51
  • @LangLangC "All Christians" seems a bit of a stretch. Maybe it hasn't become apparent yet, but I'm actually German myself, and I've visited both Evangelist and Catholic sermons -- definitely no mention of a Third Reich. If a clergyman would do that, he'd definitely make the national headlines. As for "a Reich", that's just a word in regular German speech, there's nothing wrong with it. But what I meant is that you won't find the Third Reich motif in print anymore -- not even in Sarrazin's books. – Chris W. Feb 23 '19 at 08:57
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To complement R Mac's answer, Reich entered the English lexicon in this use in the 18th and 19th centuries, so by the time the Third Reich rose in the 1930s, the word would have needed no translation.

Thomas Carlyle, who wrote a history of Friedrich the II of Prussia in 1865, refers to Reich 27 times. The term is applied to both the Holy Roman Empire and to Fredrick the Great's kingdom of Prussia.

The Oxford English Dictionary entry for Reich collects several more examples from 19th century periodicals, principally the Times, including this one from 1852:

Times 6 July 6/4 It was the old court of appeal of the Reich, remarkable in its time, even among other courts, for its majestic slowness of procedure.

So this word would have been readily identified with Germanic centers of power from the medieval period to the present.

Since this word serves principally as a reference, it'd be inaccurate to gloss it as a single word like realm. It's more of a linguistic borrowing, like Khanate, where the form of government and the culture of origin are both bound up within the word. Referring to a non-Mongol/Turkic entity as a Khanate would invite comparison to actual Khanates, just like referring to a non-Germanic entity as a Reich would invite comparison to the HRE/Prussia/Germany (before the 20th century) and to Nazi Germany today.

V2Blast
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TaliesinMerlin
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Interestingly, the "First Reich" is the Holy Roman Empire. So the concept of the "Reich" as understood by speakers of German transcended language and cultural shifts over a very long period of time, from 962 CE through 1945 CE.

You can therefore think of "Reich" as similar to the English "realm" but different. The "Reich" is what German speakers view to be the empire of the German state, with authority derived from a unified "German people" within the empire instead of from a religious deity or a monarchy. As such, a Reich is distinctly German. I assume that since the 1940s every English speaking person on the planet had learned that the word "Reich" essentially means "Realm of Germany", there was never any need to translate it. And translating it would have lost some meaning, since there's no clean way to articulate this concept in English.

R Mac
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    This is fascinating, but now I'm dying to know what "The Second Reich" is. (???) – Oldbag Feb 16 '19 at 19:46
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    @Oldbag The Nazis used the term to mean the 1871-1918 German Empire (Deutsches Reich), from unification until Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated. – Anyon Feb 16 '19 at 20:01
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    @RMac For german speakers, a "Reich" does not necessarily mean the "Empire of the german state", it is not that nation specific. For example the British Empire is also a "Reich", the "Britische (Welt)Reich". – Marcel Krüger Feb 16 '19 at 23:39
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    @Anyon To finish the point you started, there was no "second" Reich. The Nazis just liked the number three more than two, so applied to retroactively to a period of time that never used "reich" so that they could be the "third" instead of the "second." They were very superstitious about numbers. – Michael W. Feb 18 '19 at 18:32
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    The empire of Kaiser Wilhelm's was certainly called a "Reich" of its time, though not actually the "Second Reich". The "Third Reich" took its title from Hitler's ambitions to conquer all of Europe, drawing on conquests of the path to succinctly explain the intent of Germany's WW2 efforts. So the "First Reich" of course wasn't actually called that in its day, either. Also, fun fact, "Reich" does have a Middle English cognate in "riche" or "ryche", meaning kingdom or empire. – R Mac Feb 19 '19 at 00:46
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The use of the German word "Reich" clearly conveys that one is referring to Germany (or at least to a German-speaking country). If one were to replace "Reich" by "Empire" (or a similar English-language alternative), one would have to refer to "The Third German Empire" (or similar), whereas using the German word "Reich" automatically conveys that it is Germany (or another German-speaking country) that is being referred to, thus removing the need for the extra word.

In other words, The Third Reich is more compact than The Third German Empire", while automatically conveying that it is Germany that is being referred to.

TrevorD
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  • I would say this is the best answer, in that Reich could be translated into other terms, but this term is distinctively German and has become traditional usage, much as we refer to the chancellor and not the prime minister, even though chancellor is itself a translation and refers to very different posts in English-speaking countries. This is also why we speak of the Japanese Diet — itself a weird borrowing from First Reich terminology — and not its Parliament (or Kokkai), and of Egyptian governorates and Chinese prefectures instead of provinces. – choster Feb 20 '19 at 17:48
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I think as to why "Reich" was retained is because of a simple matter of productivity and suitability of the word "Reich;" i.e., the economy of the German word itself warrants retention.

"Third Reich" has contexts:

a) It is related to Germany - because of "Reich"

b) It is related to XX century history - because of "Third"

c) It just sounds "cool"

It's just an economy of words: with "Third Reich" we have a lot of contextual information condensed into just two words.

Comparison with another languages

Russian: As a native Russian speaker, I can inform you that the same is in Russian language: "Das Dritte Reich" is translated as "Третий Рейх"( "Рейх" is transliteration of "Reich")

I don't know how native English speakers can understand "The Third Realm," but for Russian speaking, "Третий Мир," can be easily confused with concept of Third Rome.

Again, it's merely a question of economy.

Two words clearly defined in their historical and geographical context (and "Reich" sounds cool in Russian - and English - too).

Japanese(and Chinese?): Although if we look further on East we can find that in China and Japan translation 第三帝国 is used (but kanji themselves are embodiment of economy, so my "theory of economy of words" still works)

Swedish: Tredje_riket - looks like translation.

Edit: Clarification from @prof-falken:

Swedish is (and was so even more before and during WWII) so culturally close to Germany, and linguistically is still, that "rike" and "reich" are not only cognates, but dare I say understood in the same way between the languages.

Slovak: Tretia ríša Aha! And in Slovak we have an ambiguity! (Altghough I suppose that for most Slovaks it's not a problem to mix German words with ease).

(Please do not take too seriously my hypothesis. I would be glad to entertain contention if I seem to be incorrect).

Alex Yu
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    On the same level of seriousness; wouldn't "Третий Мир" translate as "Third World"? – Tim Lymington Feb 17 '19 at 21:31
  • Yes. "Третий Мир" today is translation of "le tiers monde". But I suppose that in XIV-XVI it could be understood in another sense: Rome was almost synonymical with Pax Romana and idea of Empire as all. So .. I don't know how Russians of Middle Age could interpret "Третий Мир". Take my words with tons of salt - I'm an historian or linguist. – Alex Yu Feb 17 '19 at 21:54
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    I have frankly no idea what you are trying to say with the “Czech” example, which is really Slovak. There is nothing ambiguous about it. For the record, Slovak “ríša” and Czech “říše” are perfectly common native words. (I suppose they originated as Germanic loanwords, but that would have happened centuries ago, nothing to do with the Nazis.) It is used in historic names such as the Roman Empire or the Great Moravian Empire, but also in diverse contexts such as biological kingdom, or phrases such as “in the realm of fantasy”. – Emil Jeřábek Feb 18 '19 at 09:45
  • @EmilJeřábek Actually I wanted to include both Czech and Slovak examples on start but in the process of editing I made mistake. Please excuse me and thank you for your edit :) – Alex Yu Feb 18 '19 at 10:24
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    @AlexYu But Third Rome is usually literally translated as "Третий Рим" (I'm also a Russian native speaker). And the connection between the "Third" and 20th century is also quite doubtful, especially for non-historians (since one has to know about the existence of 1st and 2nd Reichs, to understand the expression for 3rd) – trolley813 Feb 18 '19 at 10:32
  • Yes. Look at my second comment. AFAIK there was strong link in Middle Ages between "Rome" - "Pax Romana" - idea of Empire as all and "World". Something similar was on East: China - China Empire and whole world itself were treated somewhat interchangeably. And again: take my words with tons of salt - I myself doubt they are totally true. I just suppose: a) it's possible to think this way, b) it certainly were men who thought in this way – Alex Yu Feb 18 '19 at 10:49
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    As a Swede I can confirm that "rike" is the same word as "Reich". However, with no qualifier (like "third") it's usually used about Sweden and not Germany. I believe that this relates to the monarchy as the Swedish word for "kingdom" is "kungarike". – Kapten-N Feb 18 '19 at 12:25
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    What kind of ambiguity do you see in the Slovak example? It is a translation, as explained by Emil. – Vladimir F Героям слава Feb 19 '19 at 18:53
  • @VladimirF It is marked so on wikipedia article. "Tretia ríša môže byť:" means "Tretia ríša can be: [variants]" – Alex Yu Feb 19 '19 at 19:55
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    OK, but the other ones are really obscure. Frege's third realm and something chiliastic that I can't even find anywhere. Normally there is only one widely used meaning. – Vladimir F Героям слава Feb 19 '19 at 20:07
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    @Kapten-N The same was true for all the Germanic languages, including English (which used to have "riche"). I suspect the change to "Empire" was more to do with the glorification of ancient Rome and Greece than anything else (mind, "Empire" really meant any kind of rule - today, the word basically means what "colonial empire" used to mean, with all the connotations included). – Luaan Feb 20 '19 at 08:29
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    @Luaan Does "riche/rike" have any thing to do with "rich/rik" (as in "wealthy")? "Wealth", btw, is "rikedom" in Swedish. – Kapten-N Feb 20 '19 at 09:14
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    @Kapten-N It seems to be related, yes. This was still at a time when the Germanic languages readily intermixed, so there was some borrowing, some mixing up and some "convergent evolution", so to speak. The Old English "rice" meant "strong, powerful, high-ranking", and gradually evolved to both "riche" ("reich") and "rich" (wealthy). It's not too surprising given how wealth and power were (and really, still are) connected. – Luaan Feb 20 '19 at 09:22
  • It "sounds cool"??? geesus – Lambie Feb 20 '19 at 21:26
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    Swedish is (and was so even more before and during WWII) so culturally close to Germany, and linguistically is still, that "rike" and "reich" are not only cognates, but dare I say understood in the same way between the languages. – Prof. Falken Feb 21 '19 at 10:07
  • @Prof.Falken Thank you. I included your clarification – Alex Yu Feb 21 '19 at 11:41
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Could not some of the usage be based on the Shirer bestseller “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Third_Reich

Richard J McCutcheon II
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Not a direct answer, but I'm surprised none of the other comments or answers mentioned that English indeed does have a direct cognate to the German "Reich," as can be seen in the word "Bishopric":

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bishopric

This word is still in use in place of "diocese" by various protestant denominations rejecting the latin-derived word in favor of a Germanic one.

So lack of suitable cognates alone can't be the answer. Although it would have been interesting if we had half-translated with the other remaining halves, leaving us with the "dritte ric," rather than "third Reich."

Mittenchops
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I am going to suggest a rather simplistic reason for this that has little to do with language : space.

In journalism space is money. You (and your editor) will always try and cram as much as possible into the smallest space they can, generally because more free space means more advertising revenue (a little simplistic, but space=money is they idea here). A single letter can push a line of text onto a new printed line, eating into column inches available elsewhere.

An editor faced with "Dritten Reich" will happily accept "Third" as being shorter than Dritten, not to mention that Dritten conveys no information to the English speaking reader. Reich, on the other hand, has no simple translation (and it's clear from the more informed answers here that even agreeing one would be difficult). So those five letters can stay as they are (from the editor's point of view). Not only does "reich" convey the German connection clearly, but the combination (as noted by @Alex-Yu) does sound "cool".

So it may simply boil down to the constant desire to save space in printed news of the day and the soundbite being a good result.

StephenG - Help Ukraine
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  • This would be an interesting explanation (after all, news headlines take greater leaps to sound controversial and pithy), but curiously, Third Reich didn't appear in newspapers until after it had ceased to exist. Before that, a few American newspapers used "Reich" from the late 30's onward. Until then, editors used "Germany" or "Nazi Germany", which is about as controversial and pithy as "Third Reich". – Chris W. Feb 19 '19 at 18:32
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    I'm dubious of your claim that it didn't appear in print until after 1945. It was in current use during the war and was referenced in movies during the war. For example, during Casablanca (1942) the main characters have a brief exchange using the term. – StephenG - Help Ukraine Feb 20 '19 at 00:03
  • perhaps I was a bit quick in saying "after the Third Reich ended", but the example in Casablanca (which I mentioned in my original answer as well) is a relatively rare instance where, evidently, the authors had learned about the "Third Reich" demagogy in Germany. Unfortunately, I have not actually been able to find any mention of the term in The Times or The NY Times, which I sifted through from 1932 till 1945. I had spotted one mention of Reich in 1939 of NYT, but other than that, the country was virtually only referred to as "Germany". – Chris W. Feb 20 '19 at 20:45
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IMHO is is wrong to call Nazi controlled Germany the Third Reich because the Nazis liked to call it the Third Reich, hoping to gain some of the glory associated with that phrase in Germany according to Chris W.'s answer. Of course they never officially changed the name to Third Reich, so Third Reich is also inappropriate because of not being official.

So I think instead that it should be called Germany when describing it as a country and a nation, and Nazi Germany, Nazi controlled Germany, Nazi infested Germany, Nazi contaminated Germany, etc., etc. when describing the Nazi rule of Germany.

Similarly the previous regime should not be called the Weimar Republic or Weimar Germany, because that was a Nazi habit.

The official name of the German state was Deutsches Reich (German Realm/Empire/State/Polity/Country, etc.) from 1871 to 1943, and Grossdeutsches Reich (Greater German Realm/Empire/State/Polity/Country, etc.) from 1943 to 1945. The republic in 1919 took over the bureaucracy and institutions of the previous German Empire of 1871-1918, and the Nazis in turn took over the bureaucracy and institutions of the previous republic in 1933.

There was direct continuity from 1871-1945. So another and third reason not to call Nazi ruled Germany the Third Reich is because Nazi run Germany was actually still the Second Reich. And I am not certain whether, or for how long, or to what degree, the present Federal Republic of Germany was or is considered to be a continuation of the Second Reich. And if the Federal Republic of Germany is not a continuation of the Second Reich that would make it the true Third Reich, and thus calling Nazi Germany the Third Reich would be legitimizing their stealing the term.

In any case the Nazis were jumping the gun by calling their rule the Third Reich.

M.A. Golding
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    The Federal Republic of Germany is officially a Bundesrepublik, not a Reich. I suspect (and hope) that Germany will never again officially call itself a Reich. And I am sure that most Germans today would not appreciate you using that name. – Peter Shor Feb 19 '19 at 17:57