State of Hanover Land Hannover | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
State of Allied-occupied Germany | |||||||||
1946 | |||||||||
Flag | |||||||||
Map of the State of Hanover, coloured red, within the British Zone of Occupation | |||||||||
Capital | Hanover | ||||||||
History | |||||||||
Government | |||||||||
• Type | Republic | ||||||||
Minister-President | |||||||||
• 1946 | Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf | ||||||||
Historical era | Cold War | ||||||||
• Established | 23 August 1946 | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 23 November 1946 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Today part of | Germany |
The State of Hanover (German : Land Hannover) was a short-lived state within the British Zone of Allied-occupied Germany. It existed for 92 days in the course of the dissolution of the Free State of Prussia after World War II until the foundation of Lower Saxony in 1946. The state saw itself in the tradition of the former Kingdom of Hanover, annexed by Prussia in 1866, reflected in the Saxon Steed state emblem. After Lower Saxony was founded by merging Hanover with several smaller states, it continued to use the Hanover emblems.
The State of Hanover covered the territory of the former Prussian Province of Hanover without those eastern parts that had become part of the Soviet occupation zone after World War II (Amt Neuhaus and the eastern part of Bleckede, Elbingerode and Ilfeld). It, therefore, included 85 percent of the present-day state of Lower Saxony.
After the Second World War, the State of Hanover was founded under Ordinance No. 46 of the British military government dated 23 August 1946 "concerning the dissolution of the provinces of the former State of Prussia in the British zone and their recreation as independent states". Its first minister-president was the Social Democratic politician Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf.
Nevertheless, on 23 November 1946 the British Military Government had approved the formation of the new state of Lower Saxony from the unification of the German states of Brunswick, Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe with Hanover at the instigation of their German leaders. Kopf also discussed other territorial options for a Lower Saxony state which would have also included Bremen and the region of Ostwestfalen-Lippe.
Like the eastern parts of Hanover, the eastern areas of Brunswick which had fallen to the Soviet zone, including the former County of Blankenburg and the exclave of Calvörde (part of the Helmstedt district) were excluded and later integrated into the East German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Only the Hanoverian Amt Neuhaus and those parts of Bleckede, which had also laid on Soviet-occupied territory, were again united with Lower Saxony after the German reunification in 1990.
Lower Saxony is a German state (Land) situated in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with 47,624 km2 (18,388 sq mi), and fourth-largest in population among the 16 Länder federated as the Federal Republic of Germany. In rural areas, Northern Low Saxon and Saterland Frisian are still spoken, in declining numbers.
Westphalia is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of 20,210 square kilometres (7,800 sq mi) and 7.9 million inhabitants.
A Regierungsbezirk means "governmental district" and is a type of administrative division in Germany. Four of sixteen Bundesländer are split into Regierungsbezirke. Beneath these are rural and urban districts.
Herzogtum Lauenburg is the southernmost Kreis, or district, officially called Kreis Herzogtum Lauenburg, of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is bordered by the district of Stormarn, the city of Lübeck, the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the state of Lower Saxony, and the city state of Hamburg. The district of Herzogtum Lauenburg is named after the former Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg.
Lüneburg is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Lüchow-Dannenberg, Uelzen, Heidekreis and Harburg, and the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Schaumburg is a district (Landkreis) of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Nienburg, Hanover and Hamelin-Pyrmont, and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Hanover is a territory that was at various times a principality within the Holy Roman Empire, an Electorate within the same, an independent Kingdom, and a subordinate Province within the Kingdom of Prussia. The territory was named after its capital, the city of Hanover, which was the principal town of the region from 1636. In contemporary usage, the name is only used for the city; most of the historical territory of Hanover forms the greater part of the German Land of Lower Saxony but excludes certain areas.
The Kingdom of Hanover was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Hanover, and joined 38 other sovereign states in the German Confederation in June 1815. The kingdom was ruled by the House of Hanover, a cadet branch of the House of Welf, in personal union with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland since 1714. Since its monarch resided in London, a viceroy, usually a younger member of the British Royal Family, handled the administration of the Kingdom of Hanover.
Amt Neuhaus is a municipality in the District of Lüneburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Amt means "municipal office" in German. The original "municipal office of Neuhaus" existed since at least the 17th century until 1885, consecutively as part of Saxe-Lauenburg, Electorate of Hanover (1689-1810), Kingdom of Hanover (1814-1866), and the Prussian Province of Hanover (1866-1885).
The Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg, was a reichsfrei duchy that existed 1296–1803 and 1814–1876 in the extreme southeast region of what is now Schleswig-Holstein. Its territorial center was in the modern district of Herzogtum Lauenburg and originally its eponymous capital was Lauenburg upon Elbe, though in 1619 the capital moved to Ratzeburg.
Allied-occupied Germany was the administration of Germany from the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II until the founding of East and West Germany in 1949.
The Province of Hanover was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1868 to 1946.
Bleckede is a town in the district of Lüneburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated mostly on the left bank of the Elbe, approx. 20 km east of Lüneburg.
The Prince-Bishopric of Minden was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire. It was progressively secularized following the Protestant Reformation when it came under the rule of Protestant rulers, and by the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 given to Brandenburg as the Principality of Minden. It must not be confused with the Roman Catholic diocese of Minden, which was larger, and over which the prince-bishop exercised spiritual authority.
This is a list of coats of arms of Germany.
The coat of arms of the German federal-state of Lower Saxony shows a white Saxon steed on a red background.
Gau Eastern Hanover was a regional district of the NSDAP established in 1925 in the north eastern part of the Prussian Province of Hanover, comprising the governorates of Stade and Lüneburg in their then boundaries. Originally called Gau Stade-Lüneburg, it was renamed Gau Ost-Hannover on 1 October 1928. Initially the Gau was a mere regional Nazi party subsection, but with the growing subjection of all public administration to Nazi party influence after the Machtergreifung, the Gau usurped from 1933 to 1935 more and more the functions of the Provincial government and its superordinate Free State of Prussia. However, after the German constituent states were de facto abolished in 1935, the Gaue replaced them in their responsibilities. Gau East Hannover - like all Nazi party structures - was dismantled after Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945. In 1946 the Control Commission for Germany - British Element (CCG/BE) reconstituted the Province of Hanover as the State of Hanover and later the same year it merged with three smaller neighbouring reconstituted German states to form the new state of Lower Saxony within the British Zone of Occupation. The municipality of Amt Neuhaus was allocated to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Hümmling district existed 1815 to 1932 and was a district in what is now western Lower Saxony, Germany. It was named after the Hümmling hills, a ground moraine landscape in Emsland region
The flag of Lower Saxony consists of the flag of the Federal Republic of Germany in Schwarz-Rot-Gold, with the coat of arms of Lower Saxony, shifted slightly toward the hoist. This flag is the civil and state flag. A double tailed version in 3:5 ratio is used as the state ensign.
Sumte is a village in the municipality of Amt Neuhaus, located 30 km east of the county town Lüneburg in the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. Sumte was part of the only exchange of territory between states of the former German Democratic Republic and West Germany. The location east of the river Elbe is unique for a community in Lower Saxony.