A (plural ) was an administrative subdivision created in a number of areas annexed by Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1945.
The term was formed from the words (realm, empire) and , the latter a deliberately medieval-sounding word with a meaning approximately equivalent to shire. The were an attempt to resolve the administrative chaos resulting from the mutually overlapping jurisdictions and different boundaries of the NSDAP Party , placed under a Party , and the federal states, under a responsible to the Ministry of the Interior (in the Prussian provinces, the equivalent post was that of ). Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick had long desired to streamline the German administration, and the were the result: the borders of party and those of the federal states were to be identical, and the party also occupied the post of . Rival interests and the influence the wielded with Hitler prevented any reform from being undertaken in the "Old Reich" (), which meant Germany in its borders of 1937 before the annexation of other territories like Austria, the , and Bohemia, and the scheme was therefore implemented only in newly-acquired territories.
There were several :
The East March was subsequently subdivided into seven smaller , generally coterminous with the former Austrian (federal provinces).
The conservative wing of the German resistance to Nazism, namely Ludwig Beck and Carl Goerdeler, had planned to divide all of Germany (in the borders of 1938 plus the pre-1918 Prussian lands) after a successful takeover of the government into Reichsgaue, modeled after the counties in the UK and the provinces of Prussia. According to Goerdelers 1941 memorandum Das Ziel (ëThe Goalû), every Gau should have been self-administered by a Gau Landtag and overseen by a Oberpräsident (similar to a British lord-lieutenant). In every Gau, there should have been a Gau court (i. e. Oberlandesgericht), a Gau attorney, and a Gau president of each the Reichsbahn, the Reichspost, and the revenue services.