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34-581: The Hohenzollern Lands were formed in 1850 from two principalities that had belonged to members of the Catholic branch of the Hohenzollern family. They were united to create a unique type of administrative district ( Regierungsbezirk ) that was not a true province – a Regierungsbezirk was normally a part of a province – but that had almost all the rights of a Prussian province. The Hohenzollern Lands lost their separate identity in 1946 when they were made part of

68-480: A Landesverwaltungsamt (county administration office) with three offices at the former seats of the Bezirksregierungen . On 1 January 2005, Lower Saxony followed suit, disbanding its remaining four Regierungsbezirke of Brunswick , Hanover , Lüneburg , and Weser-Ems . On 1 August 2008, Saxony restructured its counties ( Landkreise , German: [ˈlantˌkʁaɪ̯zə] ), changed

102-633: A hundred homesteads each, further divided into vici (villages or farmsteads). Charlemagne , by his capitulary legislation, adopted the comitatus subdivision and appointed local rulers as deputies of the central Imperial authority. In the German-speaking lands of East Francia , the Gau formed the unit of administration of the realm during the 9th and 10th centuries and ruled by a gaugrave ( Gaugraf i.e. "gau count"). Similar to many shires in England, during

136-843: A region within a country, often a former or current province . It was used in the Middle Ages , when it can be seen as roughly corresponding to an English shire . The administrative use of the term was revived as a subdivision during the period of Nazi Germany in 1933–1945. It still appears today in regional names, such as the Rheingau or Allgäu . The Germanic word is reflected in Gothic gawi (neuter; genitive gaujis ) and early Old High German gewi, gowi (neuter) and in some compound names -gawi as in Gothic (e.g. Durgawi " Canton of Thurgau ", Alpagawi " Allgäu "), later gâi, gôi , and after loss of

170-413: A total of 19 Regierungsbezirke , ranging in population from 5,255,000 ( Düsseldorf ) to 1,065,000 ( Gießen ): [REDACTED] Media related to Regierungsbezirk at Wikimedia Commons Gau (territory) Gau ( German : [ɡaʊ] ; Dutch : gouw [ɣʌu] ; West Frisian : gea [ɡɪə] or goa [ɡoə] ) is a Germanic term for

204-742: The Reichsgau of Sudetenland , with territory to the south annexed to the Reichsgaue of Lower and Upper Danube. Following the Axis invasion of Poland in 1939, territories of the Pomeranian and Poznań voivodeships as well as the western half of Łódź voivodeship were reannexed to Germany as the Reichsgaue of Danzig-Westpreussen (which also incorporated the former Free City of Danzig ) and Wartheland . Other parts of Nazi-occupied Poland were incorporated to pre-existing bordering gaus of East Prussia (as in

238-759: The Reichstag election districts of the Weimar Republic , based on the constituent states ( Länder ) and the provinces of Prussia . Following the suppression of the political institutions of the Länder in the course of the Nazi Gleichschaltung process and the appointment of Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governors) in 1933, the Gaue became the de facto administrative regions of the government and each individual Gauleiter had considerable power within his territory. With

272-660: The state parliament . Regierungsbezirk is a German term variously translated into English as "governmental district", "administrative district" or "province", with the first two being the closest literal translations. The first Regierungsbezirke were established in the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Kingdom of Prussia in 1808. During the course of the Prussian reforms between 1808 and 1816, Prussia subdivided its provinces into 25 Regierungsbezirke , eventually featuring 37 such districts within 12 provinces. By 1871, at

306-451: The 18th and 19th centuries, and was considered an ancient administration structure of Germanic peoples . It was adopted in the 1920s as the name given to the regional associations of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Each Gau denoted an administrative region, created by a party statute dated 22 May 1926. Each Gau was headed by a Gauleiter . The original 33 Gaue were generally coterminous with

340-571: The Middle Ages, many such Gaue came to be known as counties or Grafschaften , the territory of a Graf ( count ) within the Holy Roman Empire . Such a count or Graf would originally have been an appointed governor , but the position generally became an hereditary vassal princedom, or fief in most of continental Europe. The term Gau was revived in German historical research in

374-519: The Nazi Gau (territory) of Württemberg-Hohenzollern under Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter (Reich governor) of Württemberg Wilhelm Murr . The Hohenzollern Lands nevertheless formally remained a Prussian administrative district. After World War II the area became part of the French occupation zone . In 1946 the military government united it with the southern part of the former state of Württemberg to form

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408-706: The Old High German gaumann . However, the Oxford English Dictionary connects the etymology of yeoman to young instead. In the Carolingian Empire , a Gau was a subdivision of the realm, further divided into Hundreds . The Frankish gowe thus appear to correspond roughly to the civitas in other barbarian kingdoms ( Visigoths , Burgundians , or the Italian Kingdom of the Lombards ). After

442-455: The Province of Hanover and Schaumburg-Lippe. These differences in autonomy and size were levelled on 1 January 1978, when four Regierungsbezirke replaced the two Verwaltungsbezirke and the six Regierungsbezirke : Brunswick and Oldenburg, Aurich , Hanover (remaining mostly the same), Hildesheim, Lüneburg, Osnabrück and Stade . Following the reunification of Germany in 1990,

476-891: The Sigmaringen and Zollernalbkreis Landkreise , whose borders partly coincide, especially in the north, with those of the former Hohenzollern Lands. Regierungsbezirk A Regierungsbezirk ( German pronunciation: [ʁeˈɡiːʁʊŋsbəˌtsɪʁk] ) means "governmental district" and is a type of administrative division in Germany. Currently, four of sixteen Bundesländer ( states of Germany ) are split into Regierungsbezirke . Beneath these are rural and urban districts Regierungsbezirke ( pronounced [ʁeˈɡiːʁʊŋsbəˌt͡sɪʁkə] ) serve as regional mid-level local government units in four of Germany's sixteen federal states : Baden-Württemberg , Bavaria , Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia . Each of

510-464: The annexation of Austria in 1938, the country, briefly renamed " Ostmark " between 1938 and 1942, was sub-divided into seven Reichsgaue . These had boundaries broadly the same as the former Austrian Länder (states), with the Tyrol and Vorarlberg being merged as "Tyrol-Vorarlberg", Burgenland being divided between Styria and "Lower Danube" ( Niederdonau , the renamed Lower Austria ). Upper Austria

544-414: The beginning of the annexation of neighbouring territories by Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, a new unit of civil administration, the Reichsgau , was established. German-speaking territories annexed to Germany from 1938 were generally organised into Reichsgaue . Unlike the pre-existing Gaue , the new Reichsgaue formally combined the spheres of both party and state administration. Following

578-585: The case of Zichenau ) and Upper Silesia (as in the case of the Silesian voivodeship with the counties of Oświęcim and Biała ). After the successful invasion of France in 1940, Germany re-annexed Alsace-Lorraine . The former département of Moselle was incorporated into the Gau of Saar-Palatinate, while Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin became part of the Gau Baden . Similarly, the formerly independent state of Luxembourg

612-538: The end of the Migration Period , the Hundred ( centena or hunaria , Old High German huntari ) had become a term for an administrative unit or jurisdiction, independent of the figure hundred. The Frankish usage contrasts with Tacitus' Germania , where a pagus was a subdivision of a tribal territory or civitas , corresponding to the Hundred, i.e. areas liable to provide a hundred men under arms, or containing roughly

646-693: The governors ( Oberpräsidenten ) of Prussian provinces. Many of its administrative functions, however, were the responsibility of the nearby Rhine Province . During the Austro-Prussia War of 1866, the Hohenzollern Lands were occupied from 27 June to 6 August by troops from Württemberg, which fought with the German Confederation on the losing Austrian side of the war. In 1875 Prussia established provincial associations ( Provinzialverbänden ), bodies of local self-government that were above

680-466: The municipalities and the rural and urban districts, and that replaced the older, lower-level administrative districts. With their formation, the Hohenzollern Lands gained self-government through a Landeskommunalverband , a corporate body under public law for the self-administration of the district and for which a district parliament ( Kommunallandtag ) was elected. Both remained in existence until 1973. The Hohenzollern Lands' court of appeal until 1879

714-739: The name of its Regierungsbezirke to Direktionsbezirke (directorate districts), and moved some responsibilities to the districts. The Direktionsbezirke were still named Chemnitz , Dresden , and Leipzig , but a border change was necessary because the new district of Mittelsachsen crossed the borders of the old Regierungsbezirke . On 1 March 2012, the Direktionsbezirke were merged into one Landesdirektion (county directorate). Currently, only four German states out of 16 in total are divided into Regierungsbezirke ; all others are directly divided into districts without mid-level agencies. Those four states are divided into

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748-457: The nineteen Regierungsbezirke features a non- legislative governing body called a Regierungspräsidium (governing presidium) or Bezirksregierung (district government) headed by a Regierungspräsident (governing president), concerned mostly with administrative decisions on a local level for districts within its jurisdiction. Saxony has Direktionsbezirke (directorate districts) with more responsibilities shifted from

782-780: The state of North Rhine-Westphalia in modern Germany are in direct continuation of those created in the Prussian Rhine and Westphalia provinces in 1816. Regierungsbezirke never existed in Bremen , Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein , and Saarland . In 1946, Lower Saxony was founded by the merger of the three former Free States of Brunswick , Oldenburg , Schaumburg-Lippe , and the former Prussian province of Hanover . Brunswick and Oldenburg became Verwaltungsbezirke [fɛɐ̯ˈvaltʊŋsbəˌt͡sɪʁkə] (roughly administrative regions of extended competence) alongside six less autonomous Prussian-style Regierungsbezirke comprising

816-563: The state of Württemberg-Hohenzollern following World War II . The Catholic ruling houses of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen had hereditary treaties with Prussia that went back to 1695 and 1707 respectively. During the German Revolutions of 1848–1849 , when the principalities' future came into question, King Frederick William IV of Prussia was initially reluctant to take them over. His historian and advisor Rudolf von Stillfried-Rattonitz told him that if he did not,

850-560: The state of Württemberg-Hohenzollern with Tübingen as its capital. It became part of West Germany when it was established in 1949. The districts of Hechingen and Sigmaringen were retained, even when Württemberg-Hohenzollern was absorbed into Baden-Württemberg in 1952. The Hohenzollern Lands' boundaries were lost during the district reform of Baden-Württemberg in 1973. Today the area is divided among nine rural districts ( Landkreise ) within three administrative districts, all of which include non-Hohenzollern areas. The majority lies in

884-522: The stem suffix gaw, gao , and with motion to the feminine as gawa besides gowo (from gowio ). Old Saxon shows further truncation to gâ, gô . As an equivalent of Latin pagus , a gau is analogous with a pays of the Kingdom of France , or of Lotharingia . Old English , by contrast, has only traces of the word, which was replaced by scire (modern English shire ) from an early time, in names such as Noxga gā, Ohtga gā and perhaps in gōman, ġēman " yeoman ", which would then correspond to

918-513: The territory of the former East Germany was organized into six re-established new federal states , including a reunified Berlin . Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt established three Regierungsbezirke each, while the other new states didn't implement them. During the 2000s, four German states discontinued the use of Regierungsbezirke . On 1 January 2000, Rhineland-Palatinate disbanded its three Regierungsbezirke of Koblenz , Rheinhessen-Pfalz and Trier . The employees and assets of

952-540: The three Bezirksregierungen ( German pronunciation: [bəˈt͡sɪʁksʁeˌɡiːʁʊŋən] ) were converted into three public authorities responsible for the whole state, each covering a part of the former responsibilities of the Bezirksregierung ( German: [bəˈt͡sɪʁksʁeˌɡiːʁʊŋ] ). On 1 January 2004, Saxony-Anhalt disbanded its three Regierungsbezirke of Dessau , Halle and Magdeburg . The responsibilities are now covered by

986-921: The time of German unification , the concept of Regierungsbezirke had been adopted by most States of the German Empire . Similar entities were initially established in other states under different names, including Kreishauptmannschaft (district captainship) in Saxony , Kreis (district) in Bavaria and Württemberg (not to be confused with the present-day Kreis or Landkreis districts), and province in Hesse. The names of these equivalent administrative divisions were standardized to Regierungsbezirk in Nazi Germany , but after World War II these naming reforms were reverted. The Regierungsbezirke in

1020-518: The town of Sigmaringen . The Hohenzollern Lands, with a total population of only about 65,500 in 1850, were smaller in size and less populous than any of the full Prussian provinces. The district was subordinate overall to ministries in Berlin, although since it had the status of a province, it was represented in the Prussian State Council ( Staatsrat ), and its district president was equal to

1054-530: The two Swabian princes "would inevitably have to throw themselves into the arms of the 400-year-old House of Württemberg , … [Prussia's] hereditary enemy", a disgrace that the king could not bear. In May 1849 he approved a treaty of annexation that was signed on 7 December 1849; the two princes abdicated the same day. The Prussian state took possession of Sigmaringen on 6 April 1850 and of Hechingen on 8 April. The two former principalities were then merged into one governmental district with administrative headquarters in

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1088-647: The upper administrative districts ( Oberamtsbezirke ) Gammertingen, Haigerloch, Hechingen and Sigmaringen were combined to form the two new Oberämter , Hechingen and Sigmaringen. In 1918, following World War I, the Hohenzollern Lands became a province of the Free State of Prussia , and their overall status remained unchanged during the life of the Weimar Republic . In 1933, after the Nazi seizure of power, all provincial functions were de facto suspended and provinces were placed under direct rule. The Hohenzollern Lands belonged to

1122-463: Was also renamed "Upper Danube" ( Oberdonau ), thus eliminating the name of "Austria" ( Österreich in German) from the official map. A small number of boundary changes also took place, the most significant of which was the massive expansion of Vienna 's official territory, at the expense of "Lower Danube". Northern and eastern territory annexed from the dismembered Czechoslovakia were mainly organised as

1156-741: Was in Arnsberg , about 450 km to the north. After that the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main was responsible. Its military, higher education system and medical system were under the jurisdiction of the Rhine Province. The administration of the Sigmaringen district, which performed the tasks of a state government, was initially divided into the seven Hohenzollern upper bureaus ( Oberämter ) of Gammertingen , Haigerloch , Hechingen , Ostrach , Sigmaringen , Trochtelfingen and Wald . In 1925

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