1927–1945 → Today part of Germany | 1937–1945 Rudolf Jordan Capital Dessau | |
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1927–1935 Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper 1935–1937 Joachim Albrecht (acting) | ||
The Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt was an administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the German state of Anhalt and the Prussian province of Saxony. Before that, from 1927 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area.
History
The Nazi Gau (plural Gaue) system was originally established in a party conference on 22 May 1926, in order to improve administration of the party structure. From 1933 onwards, after the Nazi seizure of power, the Gaue increasingly replaced the German states as administrative subdivisions in Germany.
At the head of each Gau stood a Gauleiter, a position which became increasingly more powerful, especially after the outbreak of the Second World War, with little interference from above. Local Gauleiter 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, the Volkssturm and the defense of the Gau.
The position of Gauleiter in Magdeburg-Anhalt was held by Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper from 1927 to 1935, followed by his deputy Joachim Albrecht, after Loeper's death from cancer, who run the Gau in an acting role from 1935 to 1937. Rudolf Jordan was the Gauleiter for the remainder of its history from 1937 to 1945. Jordan was sentenced to 25 years prison in the Soviet Union after the war but released in 1955 and died in 1988. He published his autobiography about his time as Gauleiter and in captivity which showed no indication that he was willing to take responsibility for the events in Nazi Germany.