Note: wrote all this down a couple days ago, jsut didn't have time to post it.
1. So I was sitting in world history from 1500 tthe other day and my professor tells us in review for the Final and he goes "the German reich's... all you need to know about them is that they liked killing people and wanted to take over the world." Stupid fucking teacher. He's made comments like this before, and it makes me just want to stand up in front of the class and chew his stupid over-paid ass out till he cries. Only the Third Reich was all about global domination, one supreme race, mass genocide, etc. The truth is that the first reich (the Holy Roman Empire [no, not the one based in rome, the one that controlled most of what is present day germany, switzerland and belgium]) was not much unlike the rest of Europe at the time. They had no desire for mass genocide, although they did typically publicly hang dissenters, but again, the rest of europe did that two. They were just after the three G's just like the rest of europe (for those who don't know what the three G's are, the three G's are god, gold , and glory)
The Second Reich Was the German Empire during World War I. While they had manuy many expansionistic goals, just like the rest of europe, they only entered into world war I because their allies declared war, and they had to pick a side. Originally, they didn't even want to join the war, but quickly realized that their geographical location forced them to either join the war, or be invaded by one of the two factions of the war.
The third Reich. Well, you all know about the third reich, 6 million dead in concentration camps, tens of millions killed in combat, lets take over the world, kill the jews, kill the arabs, kill the political extremists, hell, we'l just kill everyone who doesn't have blonde hair and blue eyes, and whoevers left that we don't like after that, we'll get rid of them too.
Disclaimer: Comments on the third reich are over-generalized and extremely vague, but you got my point, and those who are smart enough to tell me that my comments were overly vague know enough about the issue that an in depth discussion is not needed.