Gau Essen
| Gau Essen | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gau of Nazi Germany | |||||||||
| 1928–1945 | |||||||||
 Flag  Coat of arms | |||||||||
 Gau Essen on the left, bordering The Netherlands | |||||||||
| Capital | Essen | ||||||||
| Area | |||||||||
• | 1,900 km2 (730 sq mi) | ||||||||
| Population | |||||||||
• | 2,800,000 | ||||||||
| Government | |||||||||
| Gauleiter | |||||||||
• 1928–1945 | Josef Terboven | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 1 August 1928 | ||||||||
| 8 May 1945 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Germany | ||||||||
The Gau Essen was an administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the northern parts of the Prussian Rhine Province. Before that, from 1928 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area.
History
[edit]Establishment and government
[edit]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 onward, 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]
World War II
[edit]The position of Gauleiter in Essen was held by Josef Terboven throughout the history of the Gau.[3][4] After the German conquest of Norway in 1940 Hitler promoted Terboven Reichskommissar for the occupied country, where he ruled with almost absolute power. He committed suicide on 8 May 1945 by detonating 50 kilograms of explosives in a bunker.[5] While Terboven was in Norway, the Deputy Gauleiter, Fritz Schlessmann, ran the Gau in an acting capacity.[6]
As Gauleiter, Schlessmann had responsibility for air raid defense measures in Essen throughout the war. As a large industrial center and the site of the Krupp armaments works, Essen was a frequent target of Allied bombing raids. In the fall of 1944, Schlessmann was placed in charge of the local Volkssturm forces in Essen and was also charged with improving the fortifications along the area of the Westwall defensive line adjacent to his Gau. He was promoted to the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer on 9 November 1944.[7]
From February to March 1945, Operation Veritable saw the allies advance further into the Gau.
The Gau had a size of 1,900 km2 (2,741 sq mi) and a population of 2,800,000, which placed it in mid-table for size and population in the list of Gaue.[8]
Allied invasion and occupation
[edit]Near the end of World War II, the Gau was invaded by the western allies, who would gradually capture its territory until the end of the war. The timeline of the allied advance is detailed in the table below.
| Date of capture | Location | Ref |
|---|---|---|
| 8 February 1945 | Wyler | [9] |
| 8 February 1945 | Frasselt | [9] |
| 8-10 February 1945 | Kranenburg | [10][9] |
| 8-12 February 1945 | Kleve | [9] |
| 9 February 1945 | Materborn | [9] |
| 17 February 1945 | Moyland | [11] |
| 19 February 1945 | Goch | [11] |
| 18 February-3 March 1945 | Uedem | [12] |
| 21 February 1945 | Wertzhof | [13] |
| 22-27 February 1945 | Weeze | [13][14] |
| 25 February 1945 | Grotendonk | [14] |
| 26 February-1 March 1945 | Kervenheim | [14][15] |
| 27 February 1945 | Kalkar | [14] |
| 1 March 1945 | Baal (Hückelhoven) | [16] |
| 1 March 1945 | Wemb | [16] |
| 3 March 1945 | Winnekendonk | [16] |
| 3 March 1945 | Kevelaer | [16] |
| 3 March 1945 | Geldern | |
| 3 March 1945 | Walbeck (Geldern) | [17] |
| 3 March 1945 | Straelen | |
| 4 March 1945 | Moers | [18] |
| 4 March 1945 | Issum | [18] |
| 4 March 1945 | Hamb | [18] |
| 4 March 1945 | Marienbaum | [18] |
| 5 March 1945 | Sonsbeck | [18] |
| 5 March 1945 | Homberg | |
| 5 March 1945 | Rheinhausen | |
| 5 March 1945 | Kamp-Lintfort | [19] |
| 7 March 1945 | Rheinberg | [20] |
| 8 March 1945 | Xanten | [21] |
| 9 March 1945 | Veen | [22] |
| 23 March 1945 | Dinslaken | |
| 26-27 March 1945 | Millingen | [23] |
| 26-27 March 1945 | Gahlen | [24] |
| 28 March 1945 | Haldern | [25] |
| 31 March 1945 | Emmerich | [26] |
| 7 April 1945 | Altenessen | [27] |
| 11 April 1945 | Essen | [27] |
| 12 April 1945 | Duisburg | [28] |
| 15 April 1945 | Werden | |
| 15 April 1945 | Kettwig |
References
[edit]- ^ Jump up to: Jump up to: a b "Die NS-Gaue" [The Nazi Gaue]. dhm.de (in German). Deutsches Historisches Museum. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
- ^ "The Organization of the Nazi Party & State". nizkor.org. The Nizkor Project. Archived from the original on 9 November 2016. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
- ^ "Übersicht der NSDAP-Gaue, der Gauleiter und der Stellvertretenden Gauleiter zwischen 1933 und 1945" [Overview of Nazi Gaue, the Gauleiter and assistant Gauleiter from 1933 to 1945]. zukunft-braucht-erinnerung.de (in German). Zukunft braucht Erinnerung. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
- ^ "Gau Essen". verwaltungsgeschichte.de (in German). Retrieved 26 March 2016.
- ^ "Josef Terboven (1898-1945)". historisches-centrum.de (in German). Historisches Centrum Hagen. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
- ^ Michael D. Miller & Andreas Schulz: Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925-1945, Volume I (Herbert Albrecht - H. Wilhelm Hüttmann). R. James Bender Publishing, 2012, p.21. ISBN 1-932970-21-5.
- ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, pp. 205–206.
- ^ "Gau Köln-Aachen" [Gau Cologne-Aix-la-Chapelle]. rheinische-geschichte.lvr.de (in German). Landschaftsverband Rheinland. Archived from the original on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
- ^ Jump up to: Jump up to: a b c d e https://blattus.de/archiv/buch/Blutiger%20Winter/texte/bluwi-3.html
- ^ "Kevelaerer Enzyklopädie". Archived from the original on 2017-02-28. Retrieved 2023-09-03.
- ^ Jump up to: Jump up to: a b https://blattus.de/archiv/buch/Blutiger%20Winter/texte/bluwi-5.html
- ^ "Der Krieg in Uedem vor 75 Jahren – HVV Uedem" (in German). Retrieved 2023-09-03.
- ^ Jump up to: Jump up to: a b https://blattus.de/archiv/buch/Blutiger%20Winter/texte/bluwi-6.html
- ^ Jump up to: Jump up to: a b c d https://blattus.de/archiv/buch/Blutiger%20Winter/texte/bluwi-7.html
- ^ https://blattus.de/archiv/buch/Blutiger%20Winter/texte/bluwi-8.html
- ^ Jump up to: Jump up to: a b c d https://blattus.de/archiv/buch/Blutiger%20Winter/texte/bluwi-8.html
- ^ "Als für Walbeck der Krieg zu Ende ging". www.hvv-walbeck.de (in German). 2020-12-03. Retrieved 2023-09-02.
- ^ Jump up to: Jump up to: a b c d e https://blattus.de/archiv/buch/Blutiger%20Winter/texte/bluwi-11.html
- ^ "Kamp-Lintfort | Kriegsende: Als die Amerikaner in Kamp-Lintfort einmarschierten". www.kamp-lintfort.de (in German). Retrieved 2023-09-04.
- ^ https://blattus.de/archiv/buch/Blutiger%20Winter/texte/bluwi-12.html
- ^ Germany, Kirche und Leben, Münster (2020-03-12). "Xanten gedenkt der Zerstörung des Viktor-Doms vor 75 Jahren". www.kirche-und-leben.de (in German). Retrieved 2023-09-02.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ https://blattus.de/archiv/buch/Blutiger%20Winter/texte/bluwi-13.html
- ^ https://millingen-online.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Das_Gefecht_am_27-03-1945_Stand_11-03-16.pdf
- ^ USA-SS-Chronology. S. 456
- ^ "Kriegsgräberstätte: Rees-Haldern-Kriegsgräberstätte - Bau, Pflege und Instandsetzung | Volksbund.de". kriegsgraeberstaetten.volksbund.de. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
- ^ Tenbörg, Torsten (2020-03-16). "Emmerich: So endete der Zweite Weltkrieg an Ostern 1945". www.nrz.de (in German). Retrieved 2023-09-04.
- ^ Jump up to: Jump up to: a b "Essen | Das Jahr 1945" (in German). Retrieved 2023-09-02.
- ^ Heinrich Averdunk (Neu bearbeitet von Walter Ring) (1949), Geschichte der Stadt Duisburg (2 ed.), Aloys Henn Verlag, pp. 312–336
Sources
[edit]- Miller, Michael D.; Schulz, Andreas (2021). Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies. Vol. 3. Fonthill Media. ISBN 978-1-781-55826-3.
