| Gau Eastern Hanover | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gau of Nazi Germany | |||||||||||
| 1928–1945 | |||||||||||
.svg) Flag
 Coat of arms
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 Map of Nazi Germany showing its administrative subdivisions (Gaue and Reichsgaue). | |||||||||||
| Capital | Lüneburg | ||||||||||
| Government | |||||||||||
| Gauleiter | |||||||||||
• 1928–1945 | Otto Telschow | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| 1 October 1928 | |||||||||||
| 8 May 1945 | |||||||||||
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| Today part of | Germany | ||||||||||
Gau Eastern Hanover (German: Ost-Hannover) 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.