A (plural ) was an administrative subdivision created in a number of areas annexed by Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1945.

Overview

The term was formed from the words (realm, empire) and , the latter a deliberately medieval-sounding word with a meaning approximately equivalent to ''

shire Shire is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries such as Australia and New Zealand. It is generally synonymous with county. It was first used in Wessex from the beginn ...

''. The were an attempt to resolve the administrative chaos resulting from the mutually overlapping jurisdictions and different boundaries of the NSDAP Party , placed under a Party , and the federal states, under a responsible to the Ministry of the Interior (in the Prussian provinces, the equivalent post was that of ). Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick had long desired to streamline the German administration, and the were the result: the borders of party and those of the federal states were to be identical, and the party also occupied the post of . Rival interests and the influence the wielded with Hitler prevented any reform from being undertaken in the " Old Reich" (german: Altreich), which meant Germany in its borders of 1937 before the annexation of other territories like Austria, the , and Bohemia, and the scheme was therefore implemented only in newly-acquired territories. There were several : * (German: ''Ostmark'') formed from the formerly independent Austria * , formed from a substantial part of the German-speaking outer rim areas of the former Czechoslovakia occupied in 1938 * (German: ''Danzig-Westpreußen'') and , formed from the

Free City of Danzig The Free City of Danzig (german: Freie Stadt Danzig; pl, Wolne Miasto Gdańsk; csb, Wòlny Gard Gduńsk) was a city-state under the protection of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gda ...

and areas annexed from Poland The East March was subsequently subdivided into seven smaller , generally coterminous with the former Austrian (federal provinces).

List of

in Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia established in 1938

established during the Second World War

(partly) formed out of pre-existing

Planned that were never established

References

Citations

Sources

* , Historical map book, published: 1990, publisher: Orbis Verlag - Munich,
Shoa.de - List of Gaue and Gauleiter

website {{Authority control Sudetenland Subdivisions of Nazi Germany Types of administrative division