800, until 1806, when it was dissolved during the Napoleonic Wars; the German Empire ( or ), which lasted from the unification of Germany in 1871 until its collapse after World War I, during the German Revolution of 1918–1919; the Weimar Republic of 1919–1933 continued to use as its official name; Nazi Germany, the state often referred to as the Third Reich, which lasted from the Enabling Act in 1933 until the end of World War II in Europe in 1945. It continued to use the official name, , until 1943, when it was renamed to the Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Empire). The Nazis adopted the term "Third Reich" as a tool because they wanted to legitimize their government as a successor to the retroactively renamed "First" and "Second" Reichs. The terms "First Reich" and "Second Reich" are not used by historians, and the term "Fourth Reich" is mainly used in fiction and political humor although it is also used by those who subscribe to the belief in Neo-Nazism. Etymology The German noun Reich is derived from , which together with its cognates in , , and is derived from a Common Germanic . The English noun survives only in the compounds bishopric and archbishopric. The German adjective , on the other hand, has an exact cognate in English rich. Both the noun () and the adjective () are derivations based on the Common Germanic "ruler, king", reflected in Gothic as , glossing "leader, ruler, chieftain". It is probable that the Germanic word was not inherited from pre-Proto-Germanic, but rather loaned from Celtic (i.e. Gaulish rīx, Welsh , both meaning 'king') at an early time. The word has many cognates outside of Germanic and Celtic, notably and . It is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *, lit. 'to straighten out or rule'. Usage throughout German history Frankish Empire Frankenreich or Fränkisches Reich is the German name given to the Frankish Kingdom of Charlemagne. Frankenreich came to be used of Western Francia and medieval France after the development of Eastern Francia into the Holy Roman Empire. The German name of France, Frankreich, is a contraction of Frankenreich used in reference to the kingdom of France from the late medieval period. Holy Roman Empire The term Reich was part of the German names for Germany for much of its history. Reich was used by itself in the common German variant of the Holy Roman