Gau Pomerania | |||||||||||
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Gau of Nazi Germany | |||||||||||
1925–1945 | |||||||||||
Flag | |||||||||||
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Capital | Stettin | ||||||||||
Government | |||||||||||
Gauleiter | |||||||||||
• 1925–1927 | Theodor Vahlen | ||||||||||
• 1927–1931 | Walther von Corswant | ||||||||||
• 1931–1934 | Wilhelm Karpenstein | ||||||||||
• 1934–1945 | Franz Schwede-Coburg | ||||||||||
History | |||||||||||
22 March 1925 | |||||||||||
1 August 1945 | |||||||||||
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Today part of | Germany Poland |
The Gau Pomerania (German: Gau Pommern) formed on 22 March 1925, was an administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 comprising the Prussian province of Pomerania. Before that, from 1925 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area. Most of the Gau became part of Poland after the Second World War while the remainder became part of what would become East Germany.
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. [1]
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 Gauleiters 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. [1] [2]
The position of Gauleiter in Pomerania was first held by Theodor Vahlen from 1925 to 1927 when he was dismissed because of his association with Gregor and Otto Strasser. He was succeeded as Gauleiter by Walther von Corswant from 1927 to 1931, who continued to represent Pomerania as a Reichstag member until his death in 1942. The post of Gauleiter was next held by Wilhelm Karpenstein from 1931 to 1934, followed by Franz Schwede-Coburg from 1934 to 1945. [3] [4] Karpenstein survived the war and died in 1968. [5] Franz Schwede was the first Nazi Party member to become Mayor of a German city, Coburg in Bavaria, and was therefore awarded the honorary addition of Coburg to his name by Adolf Hitler. Highly anti-Semitic Schwede-Coburg had the last Jews in Pomerania deported in early 1940 and thereby made the Gau the first to be Judenrein , free of Jews.
The local Polish population was subjected to persecution, which intensified during the German invasion of Poland at the start of World War II in September 1939 with mass arrests of Polish activists, teachers etc., who were then sent to concentration camps. [6]
Germany operated several prisoner-of-war camps, including Stalag II-B, Stalag II-C, Stalag II-D, Stalag II-E, Stalag Luft I, Stalag Luft II, Stalag Luft IV, Stalag Luft 7, Stalag 302, Stalag 351, Oflag II-B, Oflag II-C, Oflag II-D and Oflag 65, for Polish POWs and civilians, including women and children, and French, Belgian, Dutch, Serbian, Italian, American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, Czech, Soviet, Senegalese, Tunisian, Moroccan, Algerian, South African and other Allied POWs, with numerous forced labour subcamps in the region. [7] [8] [9]
There were also several subcamps of the Stutthof concentration camp [10] and several Nazi prisons with numerous forced labour subcamps in the region. Połczyn-Zdrój was the location of a Germanisation camp for kidnapped Polish children. [11] Piła, Unieszyno and Police housed camps for Sinti and Romani people (see Romani Holocaust ). [12] [13] [14]
The Polish resistance movement was active in the region, including the Odra organization and local units of the Home Army. Activities included espionage of German military activity, infiltration of the local German industry, sabotage actions, distribution of Polish underground press, [15] [16] and facilitating escapes of Polish and British prisoners of war who fled from German POW camps by the Baltic Sea to neutral Sweden. [17]
In early 1945, German-perpetrated death marches of prisoners of German POW camps and concentration camps passed through the region. [18] [19] [20]
When Soviet forces reached Pomerania Schwede-Coburg delayed the order of evacuation, thereby abandoning much of the population and goods behind enemy lines. His insistence in sending under-trained Volkssturm units into battle caused Pomerania to have the third-highest Volkssturm casualty of all German Gaue. He escaped from Pomerania but was captured by British forces. Sent to prison for 10 years in 1948, he died in Coburg in 1960. [21]
Lębork is a town on the Łeba and Okalica rivers in the Gdańsk Pomerania region in northern Poland. It is the capital of Lębork County in Pomeranian Voivodeship. Its population is 37,000.
Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia was an administrative division of Nazi Germany created on 8 October 1939 from annexed territory of the Free City of Danzig, the Greater Pomeranian Voivodship, and the Regierungsbezirk West Prussia of Gau East Prussia.
Ostrów Island is a river island, located in the delta of the Vistula river, within the city limits of Gdańsk in northern Poland. Administratively, it is located within the district of Młyniska.
Suchanino is a district of Gdańsk, Poland, located in the central part of the city. With 12,937 inhabitants in an area of 1.3 km2 it has a population density of 9,812 inhabitants/km2. Most buildings are high-rise and were constructed in the 1970s.
Stalag XX-B was a German prisoner-of-war camp in World War II, operated in Wielbark. It housed Polish, British, French, Belgian, Serbian, Soviet, Italian, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian POWs.
Franz Reinhold Schwede was a Nazi German politician, Oberbürgermeister of Coburg and both Gauleiter and Oberpräsident of Pomerania. An early supporter of Adolf Hitler in Coburg, Schwede used intimidation and propaganda to help elect the first Nazi-majority local government in Germany. This contributed to a personality cult surrounding Schwede and he became known as "Franz Schwede-Coburg." During World War II he ordered secret executions of the infirm and mass deportations of Jews. He also played a key role in abandoning the Pomeranian civilian population to the advancing Red Army, while escaping their fate himself. In 1945 he was captured by the British Army and in 1948 he was tried and convicted of war crimes.
The Province of Pomerania was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1945. Pomerania was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1815, an expansion of the older Brandenburg-Prussia province of Pomerania, and then became part of the German Empire in 1871. From 1918, Pomerania was a province of the Free State of Prussia until it was dissolved following World War II by decree of the Allied Control Council with the de jure abolition of Prussia on 25 February 1947, and its territory divided between Poland and Allied-occupied Germany. The city of Stettin was the provincial capital.
Macikai POW and GULAG Camps is the complex of prisoner-of-war camp and forced labor camps located near the village og Macikai (Matzicken) in German-occupied Lithuania and later, the Lithuanian SSR. The camp was opened and operated by Nazi Germany (1939–1944), and later became a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp No. 184 (1945–1948), finally transforming into a Soviet GULAG forced-labour camp (1945–1955).
The Gau March of Brandenburg was formed in March 1933 initially under the name Gau Electoral March in Nazi Germany as a district within the Free State of Prussia. In January 1939, Kurmark was renamed March of Brandenburg. The Gau was dissolved in 1945, following Allied Soviet occupation of the area and Germany's formal surrender. After the war, the territory of the former Gau became part of the state of Brandenburg in East Germany except for areas beyond the Oder-Neisse line, which were given to the Polish People's Republic. Most of its territory is now divided between Germany's State of Brandenburg and Poland's Lubusz Voivodeship.
History of Pomerania between 1933 and 1945 covers the period of one decade of the long history of Pomerania, lasting from the Adolf Hitler's rise to power until the end of World War II in Europe. In 1933, the German Province of Pomerania like all of Germany came under control of the Nazi regime. During the following years, the Nazis led by Gauleiter Franz Schwede-Coburg manifested their power through the process known as Gleichschaltung and repressed their opponents. Meanwhile, the Pomeranian Voivodeship was part of the Second Polish Republic, led by Józef Piłsudski. With respect to Polish Pomerania, Nazi diplomacy – as part of their initial attempts to subordinate Poland into Anti-Comintern Pact – aimed at incorporation of the Free City of Danzig into the Third Reich and an extra-territorial transit route through Polish territory, which was rejected by the Polish government, that feared economic blackmail by Nazi Germany, and reduction to puppet status.
Rusocin is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Pruszcz Gdański, within Gdańsk County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately 5 kilometres (3 mi) south of Pruszcz Gdański and 16 km (10 mi) south of the regional capital Gdańsk. It is located within the historic region of Pomerania.
Wiślinka is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Pruszcz Gdański, within Gdańsk County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately 14 kilometres (9 mi) north-east of Pruszcz Gdański and 12 km (7 mi) east of the regional capital Gdańsk. It is located within the historic region of Pomerania.
Skowarcz is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Pszczółki, within Gdańsk County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately 2 kilometres (1 mi) north-west of Pszczółki, 10 km (6 mi) south of Pruszcz Gdański, and 21 km (13 mi) south of the regional capital Gdańsk. It is located within the historic region of Pomerania.
Mikoszewo is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Stegna, within Nowy Dwór Gdański County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately 17 kilometres (11 mi) north-west of Nowy Dwór Gdański and 22 km (14 mi) east of the regional capital Gdańsk. Mikoszewo is where the longest Polish river, Vistula, empties into the Baltic Sea. It is located within the historic region of Pomerania.
Kępiny Wielkie is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Elbląg, within Elbląg County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately 17 kilometres (11 mi) north of Elbląg and 93 km (58 mi) north-west of the regional capital Olsztyn.
Piastowo is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Milejewo, within Elbląg County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) west of Milejewo, 15 km (9 mi) north-east of Elbląg, and 81 km (50 mi) north-west of the regional capital Olsztyn.
Nadbrzeże is a settlement in the administrative district of Gmina Tolkmicko, within Elbląg County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately 10 kilometres (6 mi) south-west of Tolkmicko, 20 km (12 mi) north of Elbląg, and 90 km (56 mi) north-west of the regional capital Olsztyn.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Gdańsk, Poland.
Greater Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska, is a Polish historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief and largest city is Poznań followed by Kalisz, the oldest city in Poland.
The Gau Saxony was an administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the German state of Saxony. Before that, from 1925 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area.