Nazi Germany (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

The Greater German Reich (German: Großdeutsches Reich), commonly known as Nazi Germany (German: Nazi-Deutschland) and Third Reich (German: Drittes Reich) in English, was the name for Germany during the period when its government was controlled by the National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), commonly known as "Nazi Party". Its previous official name was the German Reich (German: Deutsches Reich) between 1930 and 1943.

Germany was slowly transformed from a democratic republic toward authoritarianism following the 1923 Munich Revolution carried out by the Nazis and finally became a totalitarian state after the Nazi electoral victory in 1930 parliamentary election. The Third Reich's existence ceased with the end of World War II after the Allied forces defeated the Wehrmacht in May 1945.

Prelude
The post-WW-I Germany was faced with hyperinflation and other financial difficulties. Germany became politically unstable during late 1910s and early 1920s. The National Socialist movement arose among angry young veterans in the early 1920s; they rejected the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, the German Republic under Weimar constitution, and democracy in general. They called for a revival of the Aryan race and blamed the Jews for Germany's troubles.

The Beer Hall Putsch, also called the Munich Revolution of 1923, staged by the National Socialist German Workers' Party under Adolf Hitler in Munich in November 8, 1923. Inspired by Benito Mussolini's successful March on Rome in Italy, the putsch attempted to seize power in Munich. The putsch itself was a failure and some of its participants was executed, including its leader, Adolf Hitler, who was hailed as a martyr by later Nazis. The NSDAP was banned, although with support of the nationalist Völkisch-Social Bloc (German: Völkisch-Sozialer Block), it was continued to operate under the name of the "German Party" (German: Deutsche Partei or DP) from 1924 to 1925.

It was not until 1926 when Gregor Strasser became leader of the Völkisch Freedom Party's national organisation. Strasser reunified the Völkisch Party members with old Nazi supporters in the south, re-established the NSDAP party, and reorganised the party's structure, both in its regional formation and its vertical management hierarchy. The Nazi Party became a strictly centralist organization with the party's own control machinery and high capability for propaganda.

Strasser's outstanding organizational skill helped the NSDAP to make a big step from a marginal South Germany-based party to a nationwide mass party, appealing to the lower classes and their tendency towards socialism. Its membership increased from about 27,000 in 1925 to more than 800,000 in 1931.

The successful plebiscite back in 1926 to expropriate the princely estates that supported by the Nazis and the Communists already elevated the Nazi Party's esteem among the working class as a revolutionary alternative movement for the radical left Communist Party of Germany. At the wake of Great Depression, Strasser strongly opposed any political alliance with the conservatives and the monarchists to be competing with the Communists and the Social Democrats for the votes and loyalties of the unemployed and the industrial workers.

Great Depression
Germany's Weimar Republic was hit hard by the depression, as American loans to help rebuild the German economy now stopped. As the situation worsened, political system began turned toward extremism. The Reichstag general elections in 1930 saw a significant electoral votes gain to the Nazis. The Nazi Party gained 20.3% of the votes and gained 177 of the 577 seats in the Reichstag. Other political organisations increasingly uncomfortable by the Nazi electoral result. Street violence between Nazi, conservative, Communist, and even, social democrat paramilitaries was a common sight after the 1930 election and Nazi's rise to power. Germany succumbed into chaos and political uncertainty by schism between each political parties.