1925–1945 → Today part of Germany | 1925–1945 Martin Mutschmann Capital Dresden | |
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The Gau Saxony (German: Gau Sachsen) was an administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the German state of Saxony. Before that, from 1926 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 onward, 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 Saxony was held by Martin Mutschmann from 1925 to 1945. Mutschmann, a powerful figure in Nazi Germany and well connected to Adolf Hitler, was arrested by German police shortly after the war and handed over to the Soviet Union where he was executed on 30 January 1947.