A (plural ) was an administrative subdivision created in a number of

areas annexed by Nazi Germany There were many areas annexed by Nazi Germany both immediately before and throughout the course of World War II. Territories that were part of Germany before the annexations were known as the "Altreich" (Old Reich). Overview The respective da ...

between 1938 and 1945.

Overview

The term was formed from the words (realm, empire) and , the latter a deliberately medieval-sounding word with a meaning approximately equivalent to ''

shire Shire () is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries. It is generally synonymous with county (such as Cheshire and Worcestershire). British counties are among the oldes ...

''. The were an attempt to resolve the administrative chaos resulting from the mutually overlapping jurisdictions and different boundaries of the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers ...

Party , placed under a Party , and the federal states, under a responsible to the

Ministry of the Interior An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the ...

(in the Prussian provinces, the equivalent post was that of ). Interior Minister

Wilhelm Frick Wilhelm Frick (12 March 1877 – 16 October 1946) was a German prominent politician of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and convicted war criminal who served as Minister of the Interior in Adolf Hitler's cabinet from 1933 to 1943 and as the last governor ...

had long desired to streamline the German administration, and the were the result: the borders of party and those of the federal states were to be identical, and the party also occupied the post of . Rival interests and the influence the wielded with Hitler prevented any reform from being undertaken in the " Old Reich" (), which meant Germany in its borders of 1937 before the annexation of other territories like Austria, the , and Bohemia, and the scheme was therefore implemented only in newly-acquired territories. There were several : * (German: ''Ostmark'') formed from the formerly independent

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

* , formed from a substantial part of the German-speaking outer rim areas of the former

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

occupied in 1938 * (German: ''Danzig-Westpreußen'') and , formed from the

Free City of Danzig The Free City of Danzig (; ) was a city-state under the protection and oversight of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrou ...

and areas annexed from

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

The East March was subsequently subdivided into seven smaller , generally coterminous with the former Austrian (federal provinces).

List of

in Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia established in 1938

established during the Second World War

Planned that were never established

Planned for a post-Nazi Germany

Proposed administrative division of Germany 1941

The conservative wing of the

German resistance to Nazism The German resistance to Nazism () included unarmed and armed opposition and disobedience to the Nazi Germany, Nazi regime by various movements, groups and individuals by various means, from assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler, attempts to ass ...

, namely

Ludwig Beck Ludwig August Theodor Beck (; 29 June 1880 – 20 July 1944) was a German general who served as Chief of the German General Staff from 1933 to 1938. Beck was one of the main conspirators of the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. ...

and Carl Goerdeler, had planned to divide all of Germany (in the borders of

1938 Events January * January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). * January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...

plus the pre-1918 Prussian lands) after a successful takeover of the government into ''Reichsgaue'', modeled after the counties in the UK and the

provinces of Prussia The Provinces of Prussia () were the main administrative divisions of Prussia from 1815 to 1946. Prussia's province system was introduced in the Prussian Reform Movement, Stein-Hardenberg Reforms in 1815, and were mostly organized from duchies an ...

. According to Goerdelers 1941

memorandum A memorandum (: memorandums or memoranda; from the Latin ''memorandum'', "(that) which is to be remembered"), also known as a briefing note, is a Writing, written message that is typically used in a professional setting. Commonly abbreviation, ...

''Das Ziel'' («The Goal»), every ''Gau'' should have been self-administered by a ''Gau

Landtag A ''Landtag'' (State Diet) is generally the legislative assembly or parliament of a federated state or other subnational self-governing entity in German-speaking nations. It is usually a unicameral assembly exercising legislative competence ...

'' and overseen by a '' Oberpräsident'' (similar to a British

lord-lieutenant A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility o ...

). In every ''Gau'', there should have been a ''Gau'' court (i. e. '' Oberlandesgericht''), a ''Gau'' attorney, and a ''Gau'' president of each the '' Reichsbahn'', the ''

Reichspost ''Reichspost'' (; "Imperial Mail") was the name of the postal service of Germany from 1866 to 1945. ''Deutsche Reichspost'' Upon the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the break-up of the German Confederation in the Peace of P ...

'', and the

revenue service A revenue service, revenue agency or taxation authority is a government agency responsible for the intake of government revenue, including taxes and sometimes non-tax revenue. Depending on the jurisdiction, revenue services may be charged wit ...

References

Citations

Sources

* , Historical map book, published: 1990, publisher: Orbis Verlag - Munich,
Shoa.de - List of Gaue and Gauleiter

website {{Authority control Sudetenland Subdivisions of Nazi Germany Types of administrative division