What is the Second German Empire?

Answer 1

The first German empire was the Holy Roman Empire of German Nations.

The foundations for the Holy Roman Empire were laid by Charlemagne, who was a Frank (the Franks were a Germanic tribe) in the year 800 AD. After Charlemagne's death, the Frankonian empire lost stability and was divided by his three grandsons into three kingdoms. West Francia became France, the middle section (Lorraine, which included at times what is now Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium) was in dispute and/or in flux over centuries, and East Francia became the core of Germany.

Unlike France, however, Germany was always fragmented into many principalities (up to 500 at times), making it difficult to govern or modernize.

In 962, Otto the Great established the Holy Roman Empire, which included the German kingdom, the German territories (such as Saxony) and the kingdom of Italy. This is the first empire. It was ruled by the Hohenstaufen in the Middle Ages and by the Austrian Habsburg (Hapsburg) dynasty after that.

After the French Revolution, Napoleon swept through Europe, reforming and modernizing it. After defeating the German armies, he abolished the HRE in 1806 and combined the roughly 300 territories into 39 satellites of France. After Napoleon's subsequent defeat, the Austrian Habsburgers reinstalled themselves as emperors of Austria until abdicating in 1918, at the end of WWI.

In the nineteenth century Prussia, which had been Austria's rival for power within the HRE since the early 1700's, agitated through Bismarck's politics until it had consolidated much of post-Napoleonic Germany under its control. In 1871, the German empire was founded. This was the second empire and it lasted until 1918, the end of WWI.

The third empire (in German: Reich) was envisioned by Hitler who wanted to combine Germany and Austria again and lead it to a thousand-year-long duration like the first empire (800-1806) had enjoyed. Needless to say, his megalomaniac and murderous vision was ended twelve years into his plans.