Hamburg district

Gaue of the German Reich 1944

The Gau Hamburg was an administrative unit of the NSDAP .

History and structure

On March 27, 1925, Josef Klant , local group leader of the 120 Hamburg NSDAP members, was commissioned by the Munich headquarters with the further development “in the Hamburg district (including the city of Hamburg)”. Because of Klant's mistrust and his intolerance, the Hamburg NSDAP got into a permanent crisis; Klant offered his resignation, which was accepted by headquarters in November 1926. At the same time, the Gau was degraded to a local group. In the course of the Gau reorganization on October 1, 1928, the restructuring of the Gau Hamburg should be congruent with the area of ​​the Reichstag constituency 34 (Hamburg). The Gau essentially comprised the area of ​​the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. The Greater Hamburg Act of 1937 enlarged the Gau considerably, especially around Harburg-Wilhelmsburg , Wandsbek and Altona . All previously independent municipalities in the state of Hamburg lost their independence in 1938. (See Hamburg in the time of National Socialism ) The Gauleitung sat in the Gauhaus, Alsterufer 27, in the building where the American Consulate General is in Hamburg today.

From May 16, 1933, the Parteigau faced the Reichsstatthalter at the state level , but in the case of Hamburg he was also Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann . His influential confidante Georg Ahrens became Hamburg's administrative director, state secretary and ultimately deputy Reich governor. Mayor Carl Vincent Krogmann and four other senators remained in charge of individual authorities, but they were not allowed to manage them independently. Like nowhere else in the Reich, all political responsibility was concentrated in the person of Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann: Reichshalterschaft, management of the Gaus, leadership of the state government and local government. Harry Henningsen, Erich Grahl and Friedrich Stanik were district inspectors for a long time. The regional economic advisor was Fritz Meyer, a businessman . He sat u. a. in the Reichstag from 1933 to 1943, followed by Johann Häfker . Gaufführer schools existed in Hamburg- Eilbeck and in Barsbüttel . Gauschulungsleiter was Albert Henze .

Gauleiter in the Parteigau were

• Joseph Klant (March 22, 1925 - October 1926; † 1927)
• Albert Krebs (November 1926 to September 3, 1928, Gau again only from 1928)
• Hinrich Lohse (September 3, 1928 - April 14, 1929)
• Karl Kaufmann (April 15, 1929 - April 3, 1945)
  • Deputy Wilhelm von Allwörden 1930-1933
  • Deputy Harry Henningsen MdR (before May 1933 - 1941)
  • Deputy Friedrich Stanik (1941-1945)

literature

• Michael Ruck , Karl Heinrich Pohl (Hrsg.): Regions in National Socialism . Bielefeld 2003
• Research center for contemporary history in Hamburg (ed.): Hamburg in the "Third Reich" . Göttingen 2005, ISBN 9783892449034

Web links

• Overview of the Gaue
• Michael Rademacher: German administrative history from the unification of the empire in 1871 to the reunification in 1990. The Gau Hamburg. (Online material for the dissertation, Osnabrück 2006). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ursula Büttner : The rise of the NSDAP . In: Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg (Hrsg.): Hamburg in the 'Third Reich' . Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-903-1 , pp. 32–34.
2. ↑ Uwe Lohalm: "Model Hamburg". From city-state to Reichsgau. In: Research Center for Contemporary History Hamburg (Ed.): Hamburg in the 'Third Reich.' Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-903-1 , p. 126.