Gau Bayreuth
| Gau Bayreuth Gau Bayerische Ostmark | ||||||
| Gau of Nazi Germany | ||||||
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 subdivisions (Gaue and Reichsgaue). |
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| Capital | Bayreuth | |||||
| Gauleiter | ||||||
| • | 1933–1935 | Hans Schemm | ||||
| • | 1935–1945 | Fritz Wächtler | ||||
| • | 1945 | Ludwig Ruckdeschel | ||||
| History | ||||||
| • | Establishment | 30 January 1933 | ||||
| • | Disestablishment | 8 May 1945 | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| • | 17 May 1939 | 2,220,873 | ||||
| Today part of |
 Germany Czech Republic
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Gau Bayreuth (until 1942, Gau Bayerische Ostmark (English: Bavarian Eastern March)) was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Lower Bavaria, Upper Palatinate and Upper Franconia, Bavaria, from 1933 to 1945. From 1926 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party for these areas.
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 onwards, after the Nazi seizure of power, the Gaue increasingly replaced the German states as administrative subdivisions in Germany.
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. Local Gauleiter were in charge of propaganda and surveillance and, from September 1944 onwards, the Volkssturm and the defence of the Gau.
The Gau Bayerische Ostmark was formed in 1933, when Hans Schemm united the three Gaue of Oberpfalz, Niederbayern and Oberfranken into one in an internal power struggle. The term Bayerische Ostmark was coined after the First World War for the region to refer to the fact that the area now bordered the new Czechoslovakia, a country perceived as hostile to Germany. The term Mark (English: March) was historically used in Imperial Germany for border regions to hostile neighbors. It was the only one of the Bavarian Gaue to incorporate more than one Regierungsbezirk, covering three of them.
Hans Schemm led the Gau until his death in a plane accident in 1935; his successor, Fritz Wächtler, could not muster the same popularity with the population of the region. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia, parts of this country were incorporated in the Gau. The districts (German: Kreis) of Prachatitz (population: 38,328) and Klattau were added to the Gau. From 1938, the Gau was also home to the Flossenbürg concentration camp and its many subcamps. Because the Gau Bayerische Ostmark was not a border region any more, it was renamed into Gau Bayreuth in 1942. Wächtler was shot on orders of Hitler, having left his capital Bayreuth in April 1945. He was replaced by Ludwig Ruckdeschel, whose reign until the surrender of Nazi Germany was very brief.
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