Editing Reich (section)

===Holy Roman Empire===
{{See also|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 Empire]], (''{{lang|de|Heiliges Römisches Reich (HRR)}}''). ''Der rîche'' was a title for the Emperor.  However, Latin, not German, was the formal legal language of the medieval Empire (''{{lang|la|Imperium Romanum Sacrum}}''), so English-speaking historians are more likely to use Latin ''{{lang|la|imperium}}'' than German ''{{lang|de|Reich}}'' as a term for this period of German history. The common contemporary Latin legal term used in documents of the Holy Roman Empire was for a long time ''regnum'' ("rule, domain, empire", such as in ''Regnum Francorum'' for the [[Francia|Frankish Kingdom]]) before ''imperium'' was in fact adopted, the latter first attested in 1157, whereas the parallel use of ''regnum'' never fell out of use during the Middle Ages.

====Modern age====
At the beginning of the [[modern age]], some circles redubbed the HRE into the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" (''{{lang|de|Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation}}''), a symptom of the formation of a German [[nation state]] as opposed to the [[multinational state]] the Empire was throughout its history.

Resistance against the [[French Revolution]] with its concept of the state brought a new movement to create a German "ethnical state", especially after the [[Napoleonic wars]]. [[Ideal (ethics)|Ideal]] for this state was the Holy Roman Empire; the [[legend]] arose that Germany were "un-defeated when unified", especially after the [[Franco-Prussian War]] (''{{lang|de|Deutsch-Französischer Krieg}}'', lit. "German-French war"). Before that, the [[German question]] ruptured this "German unity" after the [[Revolutions of 1848 in the German states|1848 Revolution]] before it was achieved, however; Austria-Hungary as a multinational state could not become part of the new "German empire", and nationality conflicts in [[Prussia]] with the Prussian Poles arose ("We can never be Germans – Prussians, every time!").

The advent of [[national feeling]] and the movement to create an ethnically German Empire did lead directly to [[nationalism]] in 1871. Ethnic minorities declined since the beginning of the modern age; the [[Polabian language|Polabs]], [[Sorbian languages|Sorbs]] and even the once important [[Low German]]s had to assimilate themselves. This marked the transition between [[Antijudaism]], where converted Jews were accepted as full citizens (in theory), to [[Antisemitism]], where Jews were thought to be from a different [[Ethnic group|ethnicity]] that could never become German. Apart from all those ethnic minorities being de facto extinct, even today the era of [[national feeling]] is taught in history in German schools as an important stepping-stone on the road to a German nation.