| Gau Saxony | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gau ofNazi Germany | |||||||||||
| 1925–1945 | |||||||||||
.svg) Flag  Coat of arms | |||||||||||
 Map ofNazi Germany showing its administrativesubdivisions (Gaue andReichsgaue). | |||||||||||
| Capital | Dresden | ||||||||||
| Government | |||||||||||
| Gauleiter | |||||||||||
• 1926–1945 | Martin Mutschmann | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| 16 May 1925 | |||||||||||
| 8 May 1945 | |||||||||||
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| Today part of | Germany Poland | ||||||||||
TheGau Saxony (German:Gau Sachsen) was anadministrative division ofNazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the German state ofSaxony. Before that, from 1925 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of theNazi Party in that area.
The Nazi Gau (plural Gaue) system was originally established in aparty conference on 22 May 1926, in order to improve administration of the party structure. From 1933 onward, after theNazi seizure of power, theGaue increasingly replaced the German states as administrative subdivisions in Germany.[1]
At the head of each Gau stood aGauleiter, a position which became increasingly more powerful, especially after the outbreak of theSecond World War, 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, theVolkssturm and the defense of the Gau.[1][2]
Gau Saxony was established on 16 May 1926 by the merger of Gau Saxony and Gau East Saxony. The position of Gauleiter in Saxony was held byMartin Mutschmann from its formation in 1926 to 1945.[3][4] Mutschmann, a powerful figure in Nazi Germany and well connected toAdolf Hitler, was arrested by German police shortly after the war and handed over to the Soviet Union. He was incarcerated in theLubyanka prison in Moscow, tried and executed there on 14 February 1947.[5]
The Jewish and Polish inhabitants of the province were persecuted. In 1938, the Polish Jews wereexpelled, however, the Polish Consulate inLeipzig sheltered 1,300 Polish Jews, preventing their deportation.[6] During theGerman invasion of Poland at the start ofWorld War II, in September 1939, theGestapo carried out mass arrests of Polish activists in Dresden and Leipzig,[7] and seized the Polish Consulate in Leipzig and its library, which was a violation of international law.[6] In 1941, the American Consulate in Leipzig was also closed by order of the German authorities.[8] Numerous subcamps of theBuchenwald,Flossenburg andGross-Rosen concentration camps were operated in the province.[9][10][11]
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