The Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich was a six-member ministerial council created in Nazi Germany by Adolf Hitler on 30 August 1939, in anticipation of the invasion of Poland – which provoked the beginning of World War II – with the purpose of allowing the continuation of the Nazi government, especially in relation to the war effort, while Hitler concentrated on prosecuting the war. The council has been described as functioning as a "war cabinet," although this assessment is disputed.

The government of Nazi Germany was a totalitarian dictatorship governed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party according to the Führerprinzip. Nazi Germany was established in January 1933 with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, followed by suspension of basic rights with the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act which gave Hitler's regime the power to pass and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or German president, and de facto ended with Germany's surrender in World War II on 8 May 1945 and de jure ended with the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945.