From 1933 onwards, 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] The position of Gauleiter in Silesia was held by Helmuth Brückner from 1925 to 1934 and Josef Wagner from 1934 to 1941 when the gau was finally split up.

[3][4] Brückner was removed from his position some months after the Night of the Long Knives and expelled from the Nazi Party.