Gau East Prussia

Gau East Prussia
Gau of Nazi Germany
1925–1945
Flag Coat of arms
Map of Gau East Prussia
Capital	Königsberg (now Kaliningrad)
Area
• 1941 -	48,867 km2 (18,868 sq mi)
Population
•	2,119,879[1]
Government
Gauleiter
• 1925–1926	Wilhelm Stich
• 1926–1927	Bruno Gustav Scherwitz
• 1927–1928	Hans Albert Hohnfeldt (acting)
• 1928–1945	Erich Koch
History
• Establishment	6 December 1925
• Disestablishment	1 August 1945
Preceded by Succeeded by Province of East Prussia Klaipėda Region Warsaw Voivodeship (1919–1939) Białystok Voivodeship (1919–1939) Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic People's Republic of Poland
Today part of	Belarus Poland Lithuania Russia (Kaliningrad Oblast)

Gau East Prussia (German: Ostpreußen) was an administrative division of Nazi Germany encompassing the province of East Prussia in the Free State of Prussia from 1933 to 1945. Before that, from 1925 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area, having been established at a conference in Königsberg on 6 December 1925.^[2] In 1939, Gau East Prussia expanded following the annexation of the Klaipėda Region from Lithuania and the occupation of Poland, while a sliver of territory from the gau was transferred to Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia. After Germany's attack on the USSR, the Belarusian city of Hrodna (German: Garten) also became part of the Gau.

After the war, the territory of the former Gau became part of the Russian SFSR exclave of Kaliningrad in the Soviet Union, major sections were given to Poland, and the area of the Klaipėda Region was returned to the Lithuanian SSR and Hrodna - to the Belarusian SSR within the Soviet Union.