A Gauleiter was a regional leader of the Nazi Party who served as the head of a Gau or Reichsgau. Gauleiter was the third-highest rank in the Nazi political leadership, subordinate only to Reichsleite
A group of Gauleiters greet Hitler at Gorlitz, 1943.
Adolf Wagner, Gauleiter in Munich, the headquarters of the Nazi Party, from 1 November 1929. Though incapacitated by a stroke in June 1942, he remained titular Gauleiter until his death on 12 April 1944.
Fritz Sauckel was the Gauleiter of Thuringia, from 30 September 1927 to 8 May 1945 and the Reichsstatthalter of Thuringia from 5 May 1933. Also the Reich's General Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment, he was executed as a war criminal after the Nuremberg trials.
Karl Kaufmann was the Gauleiter of Hamburg, Germany's second most populous city, from 15 April 1929 to the end of the Nazi regime on 8 May 1945. He was also the Reichsstatthalter of Hamburg from 16 May 1933. After serving a prison sentence for war crimes, he became involved in neo-Nazi political activities in post-war West Germany.
Kreisleiter was a Nazi Party political rank and title which existed as a political rank between 1930 and 1945 and as a Nazi Party title from as early as 1928. The position of Kreisleiter was first for
Gauleiter
…extended down through the Party organization to all members through a strict vertical chain of command. The Gauleiter had direct authority over the Kreisleiters (County Leaders) who administered some 650 Kreise in Germany proper (913 at the height of expansion after 1941) and were established as an intermediary…
Armbands and vehicle flags and pennants appropriate to a Kreisleiter (1939).