The identity of the German state and German people ran both ways; not only did the institutions of the German state derive their legitimacy from the German people; so, too, the German people derived their inherent identity and patriotic duties from their being collectively constituted as an organ and institution of the German Reich.[8] Subsequently, the term 'German Reich' continued to be applied both as identifying with the national people, and also as denoting German state territory; but increasingly the application of the term to the German national people came to be seen as primary.[9] Following the Second World War, the term 'German Reich' fell out of use in constitutional formulations, being replaced by the term 'nation as a whole', as applied to denote the state as a totality of the German national people; and the term 'Germany as a whole', as applied to denote the state as a totality of German national territory. Nevertheless, it remains fundamental to German constitutional understanding that the legal status of Germany is a function of the unified German people, and is not constrained by the boundaries of territories falling under the jurisdiction of the German state at any one time.