Free State of Oldenburg

The Free State of Oldenburg (German: Freistaat Oldenburg) was a federated state of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. It was established in 1918 during the German revolution following the abdication of Grand Duke Frederick Augustus II of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. The Allies of World War II abolished the Free State in 1946 as part of the reorganization of the German states. Its main territory, including the capital Oldenburg, became part of the West German state of Lower Saxony; its northern exclave was joined to Schleswig-Holstein and the southern exclave became part of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Oldenburg came relatively peacefully through the revolutionary period that followed World War I. An attempt to set up a soviet-style council republic failed when the existing government forestalled the move by quickly setting up an interim State Executive Committee after the Grand Duke abdicated. An elected constituent state assembly then wrote a republican constitution for the Free State of Oldenburg and approved it in June 1919.

Oldenburg's first government was a center-left coalition that lasted until 1923. After that, deadlocks in the Free State's parliament resulted in governments led by non-partisan technocrats until the Nazi Party won a majority in the 1932 election.