Nazi Period
The term Gau was revived in the 1920s as the name given to the administrative regions of the Nazi Party. The Gau was the main administrative region of the NSDAP (Nazi Party), created by a party statute dated May 22, 1926. Each Gau was headed by a Gauleiter. The original 32 Gaue were generally coterminous with the pre-existing Länder and Prussian provinces.
By 1938 all of Germany was divided into around thirty Gaue. Following the suppression of the political institutions of the Länder (states) in 1934, the Gaue had become the de facto administrative region of government, and each individual Gauleiter had considerable power within his territory.
With Germany's annexation of neighbouring territories beginning in the late 1930s, a new unit of civil administration, the Reichsgau, was also created. After the successful invasion of France in 1940, Alsace-Lorraine was re-annexed by Germany. The former département of Moselle was incorporated into the Gau of Saar-Palatinate, while Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin were incorporated into Baden Gau. Similarly, the formerly independent state of Luxembourg was annexed to Koblenz-Trier, and the Belgian territories of Eupen and Malmedy were incorporated into Cologne-Aachen.
Read more about this topic: Gau (country Subdivision)
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