Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany

The Gaue (Singular: Gau) were the de facto administrative sub-divisions of Nazi Germany, eclipsing the de jure Länder (states) of Weimar Germany in 1934.

The Nazi Gaue were formed in 1926 as Nazi party districts of the respective German states and Prussian provinces as shaped in the aftermath of World War I. Each Gau had an administrative leader, the Gauleiter (Gau leader). Though Länder and Prussian provinces continued to exist after the Enabling Act of 1933, their administration was reduced to a rudimentary body attached to the respective Nazi Gau administration in the Gleichschaltung process. In total, Germany consisted of 32 Gaue in 1934, and 42 Gaue at its collapse in 1945.

The regions occupied in 1938 (Austria, Sudetenland) and early 1939 (Memelland) as well as the areas conquered during the Second World War were either incorporated into existing Gaue or organised in Reichsgaue, similar to the Gaue in all but name. In the Reichsgaue, the Gauleiter also carried the position of Reichsstatthalter, thereby formally combining the spheres of both party and state offices. A special political award, known as the Gau Badge, was issued in most Nazi Gaue.

Eventually, in the aftermath of its defeat in the war, and the Yalta Conference, Germany would lose not only the newly annexed territories but some of the territories it held before the Nazi government assumed power; it would also spend most of the following second half of the 20th century divided into two separate states.

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