Free State of Oldenburg

The Free State of Oldenburg (Freistaat Oldenburg) was a federated state that existed during the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. It was established in 1918 following the abdication of the Grand Duke Frederick Augustus II after the German Revolution and was abolished by the Allies following the Second World War. The state parliament consisted of a landtag with a fluctuating number of members but not more than 48, elected for a term of three years by universal suffrage. The state administration, headed by a Minister-President, was responsible to the landtag and could be removed by a vote of no confidence. For most of the Weimar period, due to the political stalemate in the landtag with neither the parties of the left nor the right able to form a stable parliamentary coalition, the state governments usually were headed by non-partisan technocrats. From 1925 to 1927, following Bavaria's lead, Oldenburg was one of many German states that issued a ban on Adolf Hitler's participation in public meetings. However, in the May 1932 landtag election, the Nazi Party became the largest party with 48% of the vote and captured a majority of the landtag seats, for the first time in any German state. When the Nazi Party Gauleiter of Gau Weser-Ems, Carl Röver, became Minister-President on 16 June 1932, Oldenburg became one of only five states to have installed a Nazi-led government before the Nazis came to power nationally. Following their seizure of power at the national level, the Nazi government enacted the "Second Law on the Coordination of the States with the Reich" that established more direct control over the states by means of the new powerful position of Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor). Röver was installed in this post for both Oldenburg and Bremen on 5 May 1933 and was succeeded as Minister-President by Georg Joel. When Röver died on 15 May 1942, Paul Wegener became Reichsstatthalter.

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Related concepts (8)

Free State of Brunswick

The Free State of Brunswick (Freistaat Braunschweig) was a state of the German Reich in the time of the Weimar Republic. It was formed after the abolition of the Duchy of Brunswick in the course of the German Revolution of 1918–19. Its capital was Braunschweig (Brunswick). The Duchy of Brunswick had been established after the 1814 Congress of Vienna, as a sovereign successor state of the German Confederation.

Bremen (state)

Bremen (ˈbʁeːmən), officially the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (Freie Hansestadt Bremen; Free Hansestadt Bremen), is the smallest and least populous of Germany's 16 states. It is informally called Land Bremen ("State of Bremen"), although the term is sometimes used in official contexts. The state consists of the city of Bremen and its seaport exclave, Bremerhaven, surrounded by the larger state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. The state of Bremen consists of two non-contiguous territories.