From 1933 onwards, after the Nazi seizure of power, the Gaue increasingly replaced the German states as administrative subdivisions in Germany.

Local Gauleiters were in charge of propaganda and surveillance and, from September 1944 onwards, the Volkssturm and the defence of the Gau.

The term Bayerische Ostmark was coined after the First World War for the region to refer to the fact that the area now bordered the new Czechoslovakia, a country perceived as hostile to Germany.

The term Mark (English: March) was historically used in Imperial Germany for border regions to hostile neighbors.

Hans Schemm led the Gau until his death in a plane accident in 1935; his successor, Fritz Wächtler, could not muster the same popularity with the population of the region.