A video posted Monday on Donald Trump‘s Truth Social account caused controversy with a reference to a “unified Reich” among hypothetical news headlines. Some in the media have attempted to claim the video represents an effort on Trump’s part to allude to Nazi Germany and the Third Reich. However, the 30-second video, which came straight from a popular, widely-used template, was not an officially approved campaign video and features headlines drawing from World War I-era articles, not World War II.
“This was not a campaign video; it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word while the President was in court,” said campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The AP was eager to remind its readers that the “word ‘Reich’ is often largely associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich.” It also claimed that “Trump previously used rhetoric echoing Adolf Hitler when he said immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ and called his opponents ‘vermin.'” However, even the AP was forced to concede that “Other headlines appear to be references to World War I.”
In fact, the entire video template is a reference to World War I. The word reich is German for “realm.” While the Third Reich may be the most well-known Reich, the German Empire, which existed from 1871 until 1918, was known as the Deutsches Reich, the Deutsches Kaiserreich, or simply the Reich.
Indeed, the controversial headline in question from the video template appears to copy text verbatim from a Wikipedia entry on World War I: “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich.”
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