| Gau Southern Hanover–Brunswick | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gau ofNazi Germany | |||||||||||||
| 1928–1945 | |||||||||||||
.svg) Flag  Coat of arms | |||||||||||||
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| Capital | Hannover | ||||||||||||
| Government | |||||||||||||
| Gauleiter | |||||||||||||
• 1928–1940 | Bernhard Rust | ||||||||||||
• 1940–1945 | Hartmann Lauterbacher | ||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||||
| 1 October 1928 | |||||||||||||
| 8 May 1945 | |||||||||||||
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| Today part of | Germany | ||||||||||||
Gau Southern Hanover–Brunswick (German:Gau Südhannover–Braunschweig) was ade facto administrative division ofNazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in theFree State of Brunswick and part of theFree State of Prussia. Before that, from its formation on 1 October 1928 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area. Gau Southern Hanover-Brunswick was abolished after Germany's defeat in 1945. The territory after the war became part ofLower Saxony inWest Germany.
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]
The position of Gauleiter in Southern Hanover-Brunswick was initially held byBernhard Rust from October 1928 until November 1940 and then byHartmann Lauterbacher until the end of the war.[3][4]
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