Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany

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

The Gaue existed parallel to the German states, the Länder, and Prussian provinces throughout the Nazi period. Pro forma, the Administrative divisions of Weimar Germany were left in place. The plan to abolish the Länder was ultimately given up because Hitler shrank away from structural reforms, a so-called Reichsreform, fearing it would upset local party leaders. For the same reason, the borders of the Gaue remained unchanged within Germany throughout this time. The Gaue were only enlarged through the adding of occupied territories after 1938.[3] While the Länder continued to exist, the real power on local level did lie with the Gauleiters, not the Minister Presidents of the German states. The Gauleiters were directly appointed by Hitler and only answerable to him. In practice, interference from above was rare and their power almost absolute.[1]

After the overthrow of Benito Mussolini, the Italian government secretly began negotiations with the Allies about Italy switching sides to the Allied camp. In retaliation the Germans occupied large parts of Italy, freed Mussolini, and re-installed him as the puppet ruler of a new fascist state in those parts that were occupied by the German Army. While officially in control over all the areas held by erstwhile Fascist Italy, large parts in the northeast located between Switzerland and the Adriatic were re-organized as Operational Zones (Operationszonen). These were informally annexed by Germany, and attached to adjacent Gaue 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.[5] Unlike Alpenvorland and Küstenland, 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 of Army Group B.[5] Operation zone Nordwest-Alpen (Northwest Alps) or Schweizer Grenze (Swiss Frontier) was located between the Stelvio Pass and Monte Rosa and was to contain wholly the Italian provinces of Sondrio and Como and parts of the provinces of Brescia, Varese, Novara and Vercelli.[6] The zone of Französische Grenze (French Frontier) was to encompass areas west of Monte Rosa and was to incorporate the province of Aosta and a part of the province of Turin, and presumably also the provinces of Cuneo and Imperia.[6]

The General Government in August 1941.

On 12 October 1939, Hitler signed a decree declaring that the Polish territories occupied by the Germans would be taken over by the Governor of the occupied Polish territories, which finally came into effect on 26 October.

On 22 July 1941, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the occupation of Eastern Galicia, Hitler signed a decree declaring the region to be taken over by the Governor of Poland from noon on 1 August.

While theoretically outside the boundaries of the Reich proper, it was considered part of Greater Germany by Nazi officials as an "autonomous" region (i.e. not directly subordinated to the Berlin government).[7]

It was in turn sub-divided into four Distrikte (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 of Austrian Galicia:

• Distrikt Galizien.[8]

Government district within the protectorate.

On 16 March 1939, Hitler signed a decree declaring the German-occupied territories of Czechoslovakia (the occupied area included Bohemia and Moravia) to be incorporated into Germany and protected by Germany as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Two separate structures for its territorial administration existed within the protectorate.[9] The Protectorate was officially divided into two Länder (lands): Bohemia and Moravia, which were in turn sub-divided into a number of smaller units. The Nazi party implemented a completely different form of organization by setting up four separate party districts in the area, and subordinating these organizationally to the surrounding Gaue and Reichsgaue: Sudetenland, Bayreuth (Bayerische Ostmark), Lower Danube, and Upper Danube.[9] These two methods continued to co-exist in the protectorate for the entire duration of its existence.[9]

The Nazi government openly pursued and practiced aggressive territorial expansionism, intending to further extend the already greatly increased territorial base of the German state.[10] 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:

Territorial expansion into Eastern Europe

Further information: Generalplan Ost

To expand the Lebensraum of the German people, the Slavic populations of Eastern Europe were intended to be wiped out through a combined process of extermination, expulsion, starvation, and enslavement that would effectively Germanize these territories in the long run.[11] Nazi racial offices planned that the colonization with Germanic peoples of these conquered eastern territories was to proceed most intensively in the three so-called Siedlungsmarken (Settlement marches) or Reichsmarken of Ingermannland (Ingria), the Memel-Narew area, and the Southern Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula.[12] The latter of these was intended to be newly re-organized as a Gotengau (Gau of the Goths), in honour of the Crimean Goths who had at one point dwelled there.[12] Of the Baltic countries, Peipusland was proposed as a replacement-name for Estonia, and Dünaland for Latvia.[13]

In a conference on July 16, 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), the Volga German colony, and the Baku district into future Reichsgebieten (Reich territories).[14] On 3 November 1941, he also elaborated on the toponymic aspect of Germanizing the east:

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

— Adolf Hitler, [15]

Envisaged territory of a Prinz-Eugen-Gau.

The central and upper Vistula valley within the General Government were variously discussed as having to become either a single Vandalengau (Gau of the Vandals) or 3-5 other new Reichsgaue.[16] An earlier proposal from 1939 also advocated for the creation of a Reichsgau Beskidenland, which was to stretch from the area to the west of Cracow to the San river in the east.[17] In Axis-occupied Yugoslavia, Sepp Janko, Nazi representative of Danube Swabian interests, pushed for the establishment of a Reichsgau Banat or Prinz-Eugen-Gau, which would have encompassed the Yugoslavian territories of Bačka, Banat, parts of Transylvania (Siebenbürgen) and Baranya.[18]

• 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