Nazi Germany as a model of non-classical empire. Interpretation of legal concepts in the system of law of the Third Reich

The article does not pretend to become a detailed research of such complicated and ambiguous concepts as empire, imperial consciousness, and mentality. All of them are applied to Germany of 1933–1945 only to answer the next three questions:if the Third Reich is considered to be an empire, what type of empire is it?is it possible to define the national consciousness of the German nation in the Third Reich as imperial?in what way has the imperial national consciousness been reflected in the classification of mentality types develop by the lawyers of the Third Reich? And how do the German lawyers interpret such a classification from the present day perspective?To answer the first question, the author subjects a number of definitions of empire to a comparative analysis, distinguishing such “imperial†features that could be applied to Germany of 1933–1945 and characterize it as a nonclassical type of empire.The answer to the second question requires from the author a sufficiently detailed description of the national German consciousness in the Third Reich and its definition as mass, totalitarian, and archetypical. All listed features reflect to certain extent the essence of imperial consciousness. However, such fact cannot be considered a reason for defining the national German consciousness as imperial, because the Third Reich chose as the main criteria for its state construction a race theory while the concept of empire presupposes a multinational and not a racially homogeneous society.Answering the third question the author makes an attempt to characterize the national German consciousness through the prism of legal concepts used in the classification of mentality developed by the German la wyer K. Schmitt in the 30-s of the 20th century, perfected later by his apprentice O. Bruner and finally critically reassessed by a modern Israeli historian G. Al’gazi.