Jews, liberals, socialists, communists, and other political opponents and undesirables were imprisoned, exiled, or murdered. The first concentration camps were established in March 1933.
Discrimination and the persecution of Jews and Romani people began in earnest after the seizure of power. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the master race, the purest branch of the Aryan race. Racism, Nazi eugenics, and especially antisemitism, were central ideological features of the regime. The return to economic stability boosted the regime's popularity.
Using deficit spending, the regime undertook a massive secret rearmament program, forming the Wehrmacht (armed forces), and constructed extensive public works projects, including the Autobahnen (motorways). In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy. The government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitler's favour. All power was centralised in Hitler's person and his word became the highest law. A national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer (leader) of Germany. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the offices and powers of the chancellery and presidency. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all political opposition and consolidate its power. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the head of government, by the president of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, the head of state. The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe.
The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. Nazi Germany (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was the German state between 19, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship.
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