Greater Hamburg Act

The Greater Hamburg Act ( _de. Groß-Hamburg-Gesetz) was passed by the government of the German Reich on January 26 1937, and mandated the exchange of territories between Hamburg and the Free State of Prussia. It became effective on April 1 1937.¹ Its full title in German was "Gesetz über Groß-Hamburg und andere Gebietsbereinigungen" ("Law Regarding Greater Hamburg and Other Territorial Readjustments").

Larger Hamburg

Hamburg lost most of its exclaves, including Geesthacht and Cuxhaven. In return, Hamburg was enlarged by including formerly Prussian cities like Altona, Wandsbek, and Harburg-Wilhelmsburg as well as a number of villages. This represented the formal merger of what had previously been referred to as the "Four-City-Region".

A small but important change was the "re-naming" of Hamburg. It had to be referred to as "Hansestadt Hamburg" ("Hanseatic City of Hamburg") instead of "Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg" ("Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg"). The reference to freedom in the older name dates back to the Holy Roman Empire, which included a number of more or less independent imperial free cities, including Hamburg. Because the Nazi government disliked express references to freedom, they tried to extinguish the idea with the name where they saw a chance to do so.

Prussia

Besides the regulations for Hamburg, the law merged the Free City of Lübeck with Prussia. Some smaller villages were included in the State of Mecklenburg. Lübeck had been an independent member of the federation of states that formed the Reich before the Gleichschaltung began to bring them into line in 1933-1934. Adolf Hitler had a distaste for Lübeck ever since the city council forbade a rally in the city,² although there was also a need to compensate Prussia for its losses to Hamburg. Besides Lübeck, which was incorporated into the Prussian Province of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg had to cede its possessions of Geesthacht, which went to Schleswig-Holstein as well, and Ritzebüttel (which included Cuxhaven), which went to the Province of Hanover. From the possessions Prussia gave up to Hamburg, Altona and Wandsbek had belonged to Schleswig-Holstein, while Harburg-Wilhelmsburg had been a part of Hanover.

As all of Nazi Germany was divided into Gaue, the Gau leaders of the regions neighbouring Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg began vying for the control of the city. Its merging with Prussia represented the victory of the Schleswig-Holstein Gauleiter.

Notes

# With the exception of paragraph 2 (unifying Hamburg to a single "Gemeinde") which according to paragraph 15 had to be put into effect separately at a date determined by the minister of the interior no later than April 1 1938, and with the exception of paragraph 10, which became effective immediately
# [http://www.gemeinsamlernen.de/vile-netzwerk/Regionalgruppen/nord/projekte/hansestaedte/luebeck German website on history of Lübeck]

External links

* [http://www.verfassungen.de/de/hh/hamburg37.htm Text of the law] de icon