[2] This area included about today's Lower Saxon counties (German: Landkreis or Kreis) of Cuxhaven (southernly), Osterholz, Rotenburg upon Wümme, Stade and Verden as well as of the Bremian exclave of the city of Bremerhaven.

The Kingdom of Hanover's predecessor the Prince-Electorate of Brunswick and Lunenburg (or, colloquially called after its capital Electorate of Hanover; German: Kurfürstentum Braunschweig und Lüneburg, or Kurhannover) purchased Bremen-Verden from its Danish occupants de facto in 1715 (and again from its legitimate owner Sweden in 1719 (Treaty of Stockholm) for rixdollars [Rtlr] 1 million).

Being a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and represented in its Diet by virtue of his Electorate of Hanover, George II Augustus didn't bother about Bremen-Verden's status of Imperial immediacy.

Even though Bremen-Verden's status as a territory of imperial immediacy had become void with the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Duchies were not right away incorporated in real union into the Hanoverian state.

Hadeln kept part of its traditional autonomy until 1852, its Estates continued to function with restricted authority until 1884.

On 1 May 1827 a small section of the lower Weser shore in the West of the High-Bailiwick of Stade, forming the nucleus of the future city of Bremerhaven, was transferred to the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, as agreed upon earlier that year in a contract by the Hanoveran minister Friedrich Franz Dieterich von Bremer and Bremen's Burgomaster Johann Smidt.

Two Lutheran consistories, one for the Land of Hadeln in Otterndorf (founded by Hadeln's Estates in 1535, integrated into Stade's consistory in 1885) and one in Stade (founded by Swedish Bremen-Verden's government in 1650) for the rest of the High-Bailiwick supervised the Lutheran cult and clergy.

After the Prussian conquest in 1866, on 19 September 1866, the day before the official Prussian annexation took place and with the last king, George V of Hanover, in exile, the Kingdom's six consistories joined to form the still existing Lutheran State Church of Hanover.

They emerged in the 1590s, when the Calvinist city of Bremen actually possessed some area around Bederkesa and Lehe (a part of today's Bremerhaven) at the lower Weser stream.

In 1848 Hanoverian law also provided for presbyteries in the Calvinist parishes in the Stade Region, which exactly fit the presbyterian structure of Calvinism.

After the forcefully wielded attempts of reCatholicisation in 1628–1632, which ended with the reconquest by the legitimate Lutheran Administrator regnant of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, John Frederick, no Catholic communities existed and missionary and pastoral activities were supervised by the Roman Catholic Vicariate Apostolic of the Nordic Missions, but widely hindered by Bremen-Verden's government.

In 1824 Hanover and the Holy See thus agreed upon to integrate the territory comprising the Stade Region into the neighboured Roman Catholic Diocese of Hildesheim, with the Vicariate Apostolic's competence ending there.

By the Westphalian and French annexations in 1807 and 1810 the Jews in the Stade Region had been emancipated and thus naturalised, only to lose their French citizenship again by France's defeat in 1813, falling back into a status of toleration or mere indigenousness without political rights in restituted Bremen-Verden.

In 1845 – according to the new law – a land-rabbinate for the whole Stade Region [nds], under land-rabbi Joseph Heilbut, was established, serving 16 Jewish communities, which were founded over the years, with altogether 1,250 Jews in 1864 (highest number ever reached).

After the Prussian annexation the constitution of Hanover's four land-rabbinates came under threat to be abolished, because in Prussia proper the government hindered as much as possible the establishment of nationwide Jewish organisations, let alone such which it would grant official recognition.

[10] In 1932 in the Great Depression the Lutheran Church of the State of Hanover opened a camp for formerly workless singles, employed in public works (roadworks, amelioration) in Sandbostel.

The Nazis' rule enforcement was characterised by installing Nazi-loyal parallel structures, which would interfere with existing public administration and bring it to dictatorial lines.

The Governorate of Stade came under ever increasing interference of the Nazi party's regional subsection Gau Eastern Hanover under Gauleiter Otto Telschow, especially after 1935, when the Nazi-party Gaue replaced the functions of the streamlined German states.

At first Wesermünde's Stapo Department persecuted all political enemies of Nazism and later persons involved in all kinds of disobediences, such as strikes, absenteeism, black marketing, circumventions of ordered dues to be delivered, which all became an ever-growing phenomenon with the increasing weariness in the long duration of the war.

The Stapo had its special eye on forced labourers in the governorate, abducted from all over German occupied Europe.

Radio AFN (American Forces Network), based in rechristened Bremerhaven, became popular for its transmissions of jazz and rock music.

Thus the governorate consisted only of a mere five counties: Cuxhaven, Osterholz, Rotenburg (Wümme), Stade and Verden.

Today's efforts and activities in the field of culture in the region are covered by the Landschaftsverband der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden [de] (Engl.

Bearing the title: High-Bailiff (German: Landdrost, plural: Landdroste) Bearing the title: Governor (German: Regierungspräsident, plural: Regierungspräsidenten) Source[18] A list of interesting people whose birth, death, residence or activity took place in the Stade Region.