Gau Southern Hanover-Brunswick (German:Gau Südhannover-Braunschweig) was a regional district established in 1933 in Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

. Initially the gau was a territorial component of both the Free State of Prussia and the Free State of Brunswick

Free State of Brunswick

The Free State of Brunswick was the republic formed after the abolition of the Duchy of Brunswick in the course of the German Revolution of 1918–19. It was a state of the German Reich in the time of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany.-History:...

 from 1933 to 1935. However after the German constituent states were abolished in 1935, the gaus replaced them in their responsibilities. Gau Southern Hanover-Brunswick was dismantled after Germany's defeat in 1945. The territory after the war became part of Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...

 in West Germany

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

.