Reichskommissariat

Reichskommissariat (English: RealmCommissariat) is a German word for a type of administrative entity headed by a civil government official known as a Reichskommissar (English: Realm Commissioner). Although many offices existed, primarily throughout the Imperial German and Nazi periods in a number of fields (ranging from public infrastructure and spatial planning to ethnic cleansing), it is most commonly used to refer to the civil administrative territories established by Nazi Germany in some of the occupied countries during World War II. In the legal sense these were territories not under direct German military administration nor annexed and integrated into the Altreich, which was the fate of other occupied countries and territories. The Reichskommissariats were directly controlled by their supreme civil authorities led by a "governor" or Reichskommissar, who reported to Adolf Hitler.

The introduction of these territorial administrations served a number of purposes. Those established or planned to be established in Western and Northern Europe were in general envisioned as the transitional phases for the incorporation of Germanic countries outside pre-war Germany into an expanded Nazi state. Their eastern counterparts served primarily colonialist and imperialist purposes, as sources of Lebensraum for German settlement and the exploitation of natural resources.

Another contrast was the level of administrative overhaul implemented in these two types. As in most other territories conquered by the Germans, local administrators and bureaucrats were pressured to continue their regular day-to-day operations (especially at the middle and lower levels) albeit under German oversight. Throughout the war, the Reichskommissariats in Western and Northern Europe retained the existing administrative structure, while in the eastern ones, new structures were introduced. All of these entities were intended for eventual integration into a Greater Germanic Reich (German: Großgermanisches Reich) encompassing the general area of Europe stretching from the North Sea to the Ural Mountains, for which Germany was to form the basis.