The Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt was an

administrative division Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

from 1933 to 1945. Formed in 1926 as Gau Anhalt-North Saxony Province by the merger of three smaller Gaue (Anhalt, Elbe-Havel and Magdeburg) it comprised the German state of

Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making i ...

and part of the

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...

province of Saxony The Province of Saxony (german: link=no, Provinz Sachsen), also known as Prussian Saxony () was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the Free State of Prussia from 1816 until 1944. Its capital was Magdeburg. It was formed by the merg ...

. It was renamed Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt on 1 October 1928. From 1926 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

in that area.

History

The Nazi Gau (plural Gaue) system was originally established in a

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often featu ...

conference on 22 May 1926, in order to improve administration of the party structure. From 1933 onwards, after the

Nazi seizure of power Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...

, the ''Gaue'' increasingly replaced the German states as administrative subdivisions in Germany. At the head of each Gau stood a

Gauleiter A ''Gauleiter'' () was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a '' Gau'' or '' Reichsgau''. ''Gauleiter'' was the third-highest rank in the Nazi political leadership, subordinate only to '' Reichsleiter'' and to ...

, a position which became increasingly more powerful, especially after the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, 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 The (; "people's storm") was a levée en masse national militia established by Nazi Germany during the last months of World War II. It was not set up by the German Army, the ground component of the combined German ''Wehrmacht'' armed forces, ...

and the defense of the Gau. The position of Gauleiter was held from 1926 to 1927 by Gustav Hermann Schmischke who had headed Gau Anhalt since 1925. He was succeeded by Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper from 1927 to 1935 until his death from cancer, followed by his deputy

Joachim Albrecht Eggeling Joachim Albrecht Leo Eggeling (30 November 1884 – 15 April 1945) was the German Nazi ''Gauleiter'' of Halle-Merseburg and the ''Oberpräsident'' (High President) of the Province of Halle-Merseburg. He was also an SS-''Obergruppenführer''. ...

, who administered the Gau from 1935 to 1937. Rudolf Jordan was the Gauleiter for the remainder of its history from 1937 to 1945. Jordan was sentenced to 25 years prison in the Soviet Union after the war but released in 1955 and died in 1988. He published his autobiography about his time as Gauleiter and in captivity which showed no indication that he was willing to take responsibility for the events in Nazi Germany.

References

External links

Illustrated list of Gauleiter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt Magdeburg-Anhalt 1927 establishments in Germany 1945 disestablishments in Germany Former states and territories of Saxony-Anhalt History of Anhalt