Reichskommissariat

Reichskommissariat is a German word for a type of administrative entity headed by a civil government official known as a Reichskommissar. Although many offices existed, primarily throughout the Imperial German and Nazi periods in a number of fields, 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 adminstration 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.