Greater Reich

The Greater  Reich (German: Großdeutsches Reich) is the official state name of the political entity that Nazi Germany tried to establish in Europe during World War II.[2] Albert Speer stated in his memoirs that Hitler also referred to the envisioned state as the Teutonic Reich of the German Nation, although it is unclear whether Speer was using the now seldom used "Teutonic" as an English synonym for "Germanic".[3] Hitler also mentions a future Germanic State of the German Nation (German: Germanischer Staat Deutscher Nation) in Mein Kampf.[4] The territorial claims for the Greater Germanic Reich fluctuated over time. As early as the autumn of 1933, Hitler envisioned annexing such territories as Bohemia, Western Poland and Austria to Germany and creation of satellite or puppet states without economies or policies of their own.[5]
This pan-Germanic Empire was expected to assimilate practically all of Germanic Europe into an enormously expanded Reich. Territorially speaking, this encompassed the already-enlarged German Reich itself (consisting of pre-1938 Germany proper, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Alsace-Lorraine, Eupen-Malmedy, Memel, Lower Styria, Upper Carniola, Southern Carinthia and German-occupied Poland), the Netherlands, the Flemish part of Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, at least the German-speaking parts of Switzerland and Liechtenstein.[6]
The most notable exception was the United Kingdom, which was not projected as having to be reduced to a German province but to instead become an allied seafaring partner of the Germans.[7] Another exception was German-populated territory in South Tyrol that was part of allied Italy. Aside from Germanic Europe, the Reich's western frontiers with France were to be reverted to those of the earlier Holy Roman Empire, which would have meant the complete annexation of all of Wallonia, French Switzerland and large areas of northern and eastern France.[8] Additionally, the policy of Lebensraum planned mass expansion of Germany eastwards to the Ural Mountains.[9][10] Hitler planned for the "surplus" Russian population living west of the Urals to be deported to the east of the Urals.[11]
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