Gau East Prussia

Gau East Prussia (German: Ostpreußen) was an administrative division of Nazi Germany encompassing the province of East Prussia in the Free State of Prussia from 1933 to 1945. Before that, from 1925 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area. In 1939, Gau East Prussia expanded following the annexation of the Klaipėda Region from Lithuania and the occupation of Poland, while a sliver of territory from the gau was transferred to Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia. After Germany's attack on the USSR, the Belarusian city of Hrodna (German: Garten) also became part of the Gau.

Gau East Prussia
Gau of Nazi Germany
1925–1945
Flag
Coat of arms

Map of Gau East Prussia).
CapitalKönigsberg (now Kaliningrad)
Population 
• 17 May 1939
2,119,879[1]
History 
5 April 1925
8 May 1945
Preceded by		Succeeded by
Province of East Prussia
Province of East Prussia
Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
People's Republic of Poland
Today part of Belarus
 Poland
 Lithuania
 Russia (Kaliningrad Oblast)

After the war, the territory of the former Gau became part of the Russian SFSR exclave of Kaliningrad in the Soviet Union, major sections were given to Poland, and the area of the Klaipėda Region was returned to the Lithuanian SSR and Hrodna - to the Belarusian SSR within the Soviet Union.

History

The Nazi Gau (plural Gaue) system was originally established in a party conference on 22 May 1926, in order to improve administration of the party structure. From 1933 onward, after the Nazi seizure of power, the Gaue increasingly replaced the German states as administrative subdivisions in Germany.[2]

At the head of each Gau stood a Gauleiter, a position which became increasingly more powerful, especially after the outbreak of the Second World War, with little interference from above. Local Gauleiters often held government positions as well as party ones and were in charge of, among other things, propaganda and surveillance and, from September 1944 onward, the Volkssturm and the defense of the Gau.[2][3]

The position of Gauleiter in East Prussia was held by Wilhelm Stich from 1925 to 1926, Bruno Gustav Scherwitz from 1926 to 1927, Hans Hohnfeldt (acting) from 1927 to 1928 and Erich Koch from 1 October 1928 through the duration of the war.[4][5][6]

See also

References
  1. "Die Bevölkerung des Deutschen Reichs nach den Ergebnissen der Volkszählung 1939".
  2. "Die NS-Gaue" [The Nazi Gaue]. dhm.de (in German). Deutsches Historisches Museum. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  3. "The Organization of the Nazi Party & State". nizkor.org. The Nizkor Project. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  4. "Übersicht der NSDAP-Gaue, der Gauleiter und der Stellvertretenden Gauleiter zwischen 1933 und 1945" [Overview of Nazi Gaue, the Gauleiter and assistant Gauleiter from 1933 to 1945]. zukunft-braucht-erinnerung.de (in German). Zukunft braucht Erinnerung. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  5. "Gau Ostpreußen". verwaltungsgeschichte.de (in German). Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  6. Michael D. Miller & Andreas Schulz: Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925-1945, Volume I. R. James Bender Publishing, 2012, pp.30-31.ISBN 1-932970-21-5.

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