Government of Nazi Germany

Government of the German Reich Regierung des Deutschen Reiches
Imperial Eagle (Reichsadler), shield of the German Reich. From left to right: Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels and Rudolf Hess, 1934.
Date formed	30 January 1933; 91 years ago (1933-01-30)
Date dissolved	5 June 1945; 78 years ago (1945-06-05)
People and organisations
Führer	Adolf Hitler (from August 1934)
Reichskanzler	Adolf Hitler
No. of ministers	41
Status in legislature	Großdeutscher Reichstag (until 1934, then used for meeting purposes)
History
Election(s)	• March 1933 (8th Reichstag) • November 1933 (9th Reichstag) • 1934 referendum (merger of the positions of Chancellor and President) • March 1936 (10th Reichstag) • April 1938 (11th Reichstag)
Predecessor	Government of the Weimar Republic
Successor	Allied Control Council

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Nazism
Organizations Ahnenerbe Geheime Staatspolizei Deutsches Jungvolk Hitler Youth League of German Girls NSDÄB NSDStB NSRL NSFK NSKK NSF Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte Nazi Party Sturmabteilung (SA) Schutzstaffel (SS)
History Early timeline National Socialist Program Hitler's rise to power Machtergreifung German rearmament Nazi Germany Religion in Nazi Germany Kirchenkampf Adolf Hitler's cult of personality Enabling Act of 1933 Night of the Long Knives Nuremberg rallies Nuremberg Laws Anti-Comintern Pact Kristallnacht Anschluss World War II The Holocaust Tripartite Pact Denazification Nuremberg trials Neo-Nazism Final solution Concentration camps Deportations Doctors' Trial Extermination camps Genocide Ghettos Human experimentation Labour camps Pogroms Racial segregation
Ideology Aestheticization of politics Anti-communism Anti-intellectualism Anti-liberalism Anti-pacifism Authoritarianism Blood and soil Chauvinism Class collaboration Conspiracism Dolchstoßlegende Jewish conspiracy theory Corporatism Cult of personality Dictatorship Führerprinzip Direct action Economic interventionism Eugenics Geopolitik Heimat Imperialism Greater Germanic Reich Heim ins Reich Lebensraum Pan-Germanism Indoctrination Militarism Nationalism Ethno Racial Palingenetic Ultra New Man New Order One-party state Populism Propaganda Prussianism Racism Antisemitism Anti-Slavic sentiment Aryan race Aryanism Master race Nordicism Rassenschande Untermenschen Völkisch equality Völkisch movement Reactionary modernism Social Darwinism Social interventionism Social order State capitalism Syncretism Totalitarianism Gleichschaltung Volksgemeinschaft Volkskörper
Politicians Bormann Daluege Dönitz Drexler Eichmann Frank Frick Hess Heydrich Himmler Hitler Goebbels Göring Lammers von Ribbentrop Röhm Seyss-Inquart Speer Strasser (Gregor) Strasser (Otto) Streicher
Ideologues Baeumler Chamberlain Darré Devi Eckart Feder de Gobineau Haushofer von Liebenfels von List Müller Rosenberg Schmitt von Sebottendorf
Literature An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1855) The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899) The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903) The Passing of the Great Race (1916) Preussentum und Sozialismus (1919) Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (1922) Das Dritte Reich (1923) Mein Kampf (1925) Hitlers Zweites Buch (1928) The Myth of the Twentieth Century (1930)
Religion Ariosophy Thule Society Christmas Esoteric Nazism German Evangelical Church Deutsche Christen German Faith Movement Germanic paganism Heathenry Gottgläubig Kirchenkampf Occultism Positive Christianity Symbolism
Outside of Germany American Nazi Party Arrow Cross Party (Hungary) German American Bund German National Movement in Liechtenstein Nasjonal Samling (Norway) National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands National Socialist Movement of Chile National Socialist Movement (United States) National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark Nordic Resistance Movement Ossewabrandwag (South Africa) SUMKA (Iran) Tsagaan Khas (Mongolia) World Union of National Socialists More…
Lists Bibliography of Adolf Hitler Nazi ideologues Nazi Party leaders and officials Nazi Party members Last surviving war crime suspects Speeches given by Adolf Hitler SS personnel Women in Nazi Germany
Related topics Art Architecture Cinema Beefsteak Nazi Economy Glossary Drang nach Osten Generalplan Ost German Romanticism Political views of Adolf Hitler Racial theories Strasserism Women
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The government of Nazi Germany was a totalitarian dictatorship governed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party according to the Führerprinzip. Nazi Germany was established in January 1933 with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, followed by suspension of basic rights with the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act which gave Hitler's regime the power to pass and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or German president, and de facto ended with Germany's surrender in World War II on 8 May 1945 and de jure ended with the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945.

As the successor to the government of the Weimar Republic, it inherited the governmental structure and institutions of the previous state. Although the Weimar Constitution technically remained in effect until the German surrender, there were no actual restraints on the exercise of state power. In addition to the already extant Weimar government, the Nazi leadership created a large number of different organizations for the purpose of helping them govern and remain in power. They pursued a policy of rearmament and strengthened the Wehrmacht, established an extensive national security apparatus and created the Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the Schutzstaffel (SS).