TheGaue (singular:Gau) were the mainadministrative divisions ofNazi Germany from 1934 to 1945.

TheGaue were formed in 1926 asNazi Party regional districts inWeimar Germany based on theterritorial changes after theFirst World War.^[1] TheGau system was established in 1934 as part of theGleichschaltung process, replacing thede jure system ofLänder (states) andPrussian provinces, which held no administrative purpose since theEnabling Act of 1933 and were reduced to rudimentary bodies. EachGau was headed by an administrative leader, theGauleiter, a high-ranking Nazi Party official with near-autocratic powers.

Germany consisted of 32Gaue in 1934, eventually peaking at 42Gaue with regions occupied in 1938 to early 1939 (Austria,Sudetenland,Memelland) and conquered during theSecond World War incorporated into existingGaue or organised asReichsgaue, a special type ofGau where theGauleiter also carried the position ofReichsstatthalter.^[1][2] TheGaue system was dissolved on 8 May 1945, following thesurrender of Nazi Germany.

Gau is an archaicGermanic term for a region within a country, often a former or actual province, and used inMedieval times as roughly corresponding to anEnglishshire. The term was revived by the Nazi Party in the 1920s as the name given to the regional associations of the party inWeimar Germany, based mainly along state and district lines.

TheGaue existed parallel to the German states, theLänder, and Prussian provinces throughout the Nazi period.Pro forma, theAdministrative divisions of Weimar Germany were left in place. The plan to abolish theLänder was ultimately given up because Hitler shrank away from structural reforms, a so-calledReichsreform, fearing it would upset local party leaders. For the same reason, the borders of theGaue remained unchanged within Germany throughout this time. TheGaue were only enlarged through theadding of occupied territories after 1938.^[3] While theLänder continued to exist, the real power on local level lay with theGauleiters, not theMinister Presidents of the German states. TheGauleiters were directly appointed byHitler and only answerable to him. In practice, interference from above was rare and their power was almost absolute.^[1]

NewReichsgaue were established after theAnschluss ofAustria and the incorporation ofSudetenland following theMunich Agreement. Southern parts ofCzechoslovakia also gained by the Munich Agreement were not made part ofReichsgau Sudetenland, but incorporated intoReichsgaueOstmark (formerlyAustria).

Of theterritories annexed from Poland and theFree City of Danzig in 1939,Reichsgau Wartheland andReichsgau Danzig-West Prussia were created. Annexed territories ofpre-war Poland not within these twoReichsgaue were incorporated into the neighboringGaueEast Prussia andSilesia. TheGrand Duchy of Luxembourg as well asAlsace-Lorraine, annexed from pre-warFrance in 1940, were attached to the bordering Southwestern Gaue ofNazi Germany.

There was also an extraterritorialGau namedAuslandsorganisation for party members overseas. Its headquarters were in Berlin. ThisAuslandsgau was considered to be the 43rdGau of Nazi Germany.

On 15 March 1939, German troops invaded and occupied the rump state ofCzechoslovakia that had existed after theSudetenland had been annexed by Germany following theMunich Conference. On 16 March, Hitler signed a decree declaring the German-occupied territories ofBohemia andMoravia to be incorporated into "Greater Germany". They were not formally annexed, but were placed under the protection of Germany as theProtectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Ethnic Germans living in the area became citizens of Germany. A separate native government was retained, but a GermanReichsprotektor was appointed who wielded effective executive control over the territory.^[5]

Two separate structures for its territorial administration existed within theprotectorate.^[6] Administration of the government of the protectorate was divided into twoLänder (states): Bohemia and Moravia, which were in turn sub-divided into a number of smaller units. TheNazi Party divided the area into four separate party districts but, instead of creating four newGaue, they were assigned organizationally to the surrounding Party districts:Gau Bayreuth,Reichsgau Sudetenland,Reichsgau Lower Danube andReichsgau Upper Danube.^[6] These two separate government and party divisions continued to co-exist in the protectorate for the entire duration of its existence.^[6]

Following the German invasion and conquest ofPoland, Hitler signed a decree on 12 October 1939, declaring that the Polish territories occupied by the Germans would be placed under the administration of a Governor-General and would be known as theGeneral Government of the Occupied Polish Territories. This came into effect on 26 October. On 22 July 1941, following the Germaninvasion of theSoviet Union and the occupation ofEastern Galicia, Hitler signed a decree declaring that the region would be administered by the Governor-General of Poland from 1 August.^[7]

While theoretically outside the boundaries of the Reich proper, the General Government was considered part of "Greater Germany" by Nazi officials as an "autonomous" region (i.e., not directly subordinated to the Berlin government).^[8] It was not a protectorate, but a colony, outside the Reich and its law. Its Polish inhabitants were effectively stateless and without rights.^[9]

It was sub-divided into fourDistrikte (districts).

• Distrikt Krakau;
• Distrikt Warschau;
• Distrikt Lublin;
• Distrikt Radom.

After the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, a fifth district was added, created out of former territories ofAustrianGalicia:

• Distrikt Galizien.^[10]

After the overthrow ofBenito Mussolini, the Italian government secretly began negotiations with theAllies about Italy switching sides to the Allied camp. In retaliation the Germansoccupied large parts of Italy,freed Mussolini, and re-installed him as thepuppet ruler of anew fascist state in those parts that were occupied by theGerman Army. While officially in control over all the areas held by erstwhileFascist Italy, large parts in the northeast located betweenSwitzerland and theAdriatic were re-organized as Operational Zones (Operationszonen). These were informally annexed by Germany, and attached to adjacentGaue of the Reich. There were two such Operational Zones:

In a supplementary OKW order dated 10 September 1943, Hitler decrees on the establishment of further Operational Zones in Northern Italy, which were to stretch all the way to the French border.^[11] UnlikeAlpenvorland andKüstenland, these zones did not immediately receive high commissioners (oberster kommissar) as civilian advisors, but were military regions where the commander was to exercise power on behalf ofArmy Group B.^[11] Operation zoneNordwest-Alpen (Northwest Alps) orSchweizer Grenze (Swiss Frontier) was located between theStelvio Pass andMonte Rosa and was to contain wholly the Italian provinces ofSondrio andComo and parts of the provinces ofBrescia,Varese,Novara andVercelli.^[12] The zone ofFranzösische Grenze (French Frontier) was to encompass areas west of Monte Rosa and was to incorporate the province ofAosta and a part of theprovince of Turin, and presumably also the provinces ofCuneo andImperia.^[12]

The Nazi government openly pursued and practiced aggressive territorialexpansionism, intending to further extend the already greatly increased territorial base of the German state.^[13] In anticipation of these expected future territorial enlargements, potential new districts were theorized upon at length by Nazi ideologists, government officials, and territorial planning departments. These expansions were intended to take place in two distinct ways:

To expand theLebensraum of the German people, theSlavic,Baltic and other populations ofEastern Europe were intended to be wiped out through a combined process ofextermination,expulsion,starvation, andenslavement that would effectivelyGermanize these territories in the long run.^[14] Nazi racial offices planned that the colonization withGermanic peoples of these conquered eastern territories was to proceed most intensively in the three so-calledSiedlungsmarken (Settlementmarches) orReichsmarken of Ingermannland (Ingria), theMemel-Narew area, and the SouthernUkraine and theCrimean peninsula.^[15] The latter of these was intended to be newly re-organized as aGotengau (Gau of theGoths), in honour of theCrimean Goths who had at one point dwelled there.^[15] Of theBaltic countries,Peipusland was proposed as a replacement-name forEstonia, andDünaland forLatvia.^[16]

In a conference on 16 July 1941, discussing the future organization of the conquered Soviet territories, Hitler stated his intention to turn not only the areas mentioned above but also the entire Baltic region (Reichskommissariat Ostland), theVolga German colony, and theBaku district into futureReichsgebieten (Reich territories).^[17] On 3 November 1941, he also elaborated on thetoponymic aspect of Germanizing the east:

In the eastern territories I willreplace theSlavic geographic names withGerman names. The Crimea could, for instance, be called Gotenland. [...] We need names that will confirm our rights which go back for two thousand years.

The central and upperVistula valley within theGeneral Government were variously discussed as having to become either a singleVandalengau (Gau of theVandals) or 3-5 other new Reichsgaue.^[19] An earlier proposal from 1939 also advocated for the creation of aReichsgauBeskidenland, which was to stretch from the area to the west ofKraków to theSan river in the east.^[20] In Axis-occupied Yugoslavia,Sepp Janko, Nazi representative ofDanube Swabian interests, pushed for the establishment of aReichsgau Banat orPrinz-Eugen-Gau, which would have encompassed the Yugoslavian territories ofBačka,Banat, parts ofTransylvania (Siebenbürgen) andBaranya.^[21]

The Naziracial categorization of theethnic groups of Europe classified theNorthern Europeans, especially those closely related to theGermans (itself considered to be a single nationality of whichSwiss andAustrians were nothing but sub-regional identities at best) such as theDutch, theFlemings, theDanish,Norwegians,Swedish, andEnglish as part of a superiorAryan-Nordicmaster race (Herrenrasse).^[22][23] Following theintegration ofAustria intoGreater Germany (Großdeutschland),Hitler decided that he would follow the same policy in the future for all other countries that he regarded by virtue of their perceived racial qualifications as "belonging" to the Reich.^[24] This meant that theLow Countries, at least theGerman-speaking parts ofSwitzerland,Liechtenstein^[25] and theScandinavian states were eventually to be annexed into a much largerGreater Germanic Reich (Großgermanisches Reich) by being broken up into smaller state and party administrative units, such as Denmark into aGau Nordmark,^[26] and the Netherlands into aGau Westland.^[27]

Afterwards the very notion of these countries ever having been independent or separate from the rest of the Reich was to be suppressed indefinitely.^[28] The objective called for the inauguration of a new period of rapidly enforcedGleichschaltung, the end result of which would be that aside from their local "language dialects" these countries were to become perfect duplicates ofNational Socialist Germany in all political and social respects.^[29]

Himmler's never-realizedProject Burgund intended to revert the western borders of Germany withFrance to those of the late-medievalHoly Roman Empire. A strip of eastern France from the mouth of theSomme toLake Geneva (the so-called"closed" or "forbidden" zone ofGerman occupied France) was prepared to be annexed to the German Reich asReichsgau Burgund, withNancy (Nanzig) as the capital.^[30]

• Administrative divisions of Germany
• Administrative divisions of East Germany
• Areas annexed by Nazi Germany
• Gausturm
• List of Gauleiters
• States of the German Empire

• Der große Atlas der Weltgeschichte (in German), Historical map book, published: 1990, publisher: Orbis Verlag, Munich,ISBN 3-572-04755-2

• Nazi Gaue
• Subdivisions of Nazi Germany

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