Germany/pl

Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are common names for Germany during the period from 1933 to 1945, when its government was controlled by Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist totalitarian state which controlled nearly all aspects of life. Nazi Germany ceased to exist after the Allied Forces defeated Germany in May 1945, ending World War II in Europe.

Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if they were not met. Austria and Czechoslovakia were seized in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939, launching World War II in Europe. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940 and threatened Great Britain. Reichskommissariats took brutal control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned and murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps. The implementation of the regime's racial policies culminated in the mass murder of Jews and other minorities in the Holocaust. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide turned against the Third Reich, and major military defeats were suffered in 1943. Large-scale bombing of German cities, rail lines, and oil plants escalated in 1944. Germany was overrun in 1945 by the Soviets from the east and the other Allies from the west. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat led to massive destruction of German infrastructure in the closing months of the war. The victorious Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put many of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials.