The Gau Weser-Ems, formed on 1 October 1928, was an administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the core part of the Free State of Oldenburg, the state of Bremen and the western parts of the Prussian Province of Hanover. Before that, from 1928 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 onwards, 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 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.
The position of Gauleiter in Weser-Ems was held by Carl Röver from 1 October 1928 to his death on 15 May 1942, followed by Paul Wegener from 16 May 1942 to 8 May 1945. Röver, the original Gauleiter, was initially an early supporter of Adolf Hitler in the state of Oldenburg but lost in influence as the years progressed and died in hospital in Berlin under not fully established circumstances. Wegener, his successor, survived the war and died in 1993.
Allied invasion and occupation Near the end of World War II, the Gau was invaded by the western allies, who would gradually capture its territory until May 1945. The timeline of the allied advance is detailed in the table below. +Date of captureSettlementReference2 April 1945Nordhorn3-5 April 1945Lingen5 April 1945Bathorn5 April 1945Emlichheim5 April 1945Neuenhaus6 April 1945Schuttorf7 April 1945Emsbüren8 April 1945Meppen1945 – Einmarsch in den Landkreis Meppen. In: Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung 6 April 2015, retrieved 20 October 2016.10 April 1945Wippingen12 April 1945Oberlangen12 April 194513 April 1945Cloppenburg16 April 1945Rhede18 April 1945BundeKolbe: Als alles von vorne begann. 1945/1946. S. 15.23 April 1945Weener24 April 194526 April 194526 April 194526 April 194527 April 1945Bremen29 April 1945Leer3 May 1945Oldenburg4 May 1945Norden5 May 1945Südbrookmerland5 May 1945Emden5 May 1945KrummhörnRudolf Nassua: Das Kriegsende in Ostfriesland (PDF; 57 kB), Protokoll des Treffens der Arbeitsgruppe der Ortschronisten der Ostfriesischen Landschaft 13 May 2005 in the old reading room of the Landschaftsbibliothek Aurich, 30 August 2010.8 May 1945Norderney11 May 1945Borkum11 May 1945Juist
References
External links Illustrated list of Gauleiter