The
Greater Hamburg Act () was passed by the government of
Nazi Germany on
January 26 1937, and mandated the exchange of territories between
Hamburg and the
Free State of Prussia. It became effective on 1 April 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.
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.
See also
