Editing Lower Saxony (section)

==== Congress of Vienna to Second World War (1815–1945)====
[[File:KrkHannover.png|thumb|The [[Kingdom of Hanover]], the [[Duchy of Brunswick]], the [[Grand Duchy of Oldenburg]] and [[Schaumburg-Lippe|the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe]] in the 19th century]]

Two major principalities survived east of the Weser after the Napoleonic Wars: the [[Kingdom of Hanover]] and the [[Duchy of Brunswick]] (after 1866 Hanover became a [[Province of Hanover|Prussian province]]; after 1919 Brunswick became a free state). Historically a close tie existed between the royal house of Hanover ([[Electorate of Hanover]]) and the [[United Kingdom|United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]] as a result of their [[personal union]] in the 18th century (the personal union was dissolved when [[Queen Victoria|Victoria]] became the Queen of the United Kingdom in 1837 because Hanover did not allow female rulers).

West of the River [[Hunte]] a "de-Westphalianising process" began in 1815.<ref>Zur räumlichen Zuordnung des Begriffs "Westfalen/westfälisch" vgl. [http://www.lwl.org/westfaelische-geschichte/portal/Internet/input_felder/langDatensatz_ebene4.php?urlID=168&url_tabelle=tab_websegmente Karl Ditt: ''Der Raum Westfalen in der Historiographie des 20. Jhs.''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200522084653/https://www.lwl.org/westfaelische-geschichte/portal/Internet/input_felder/langDatensatz_ebene4.php?urlID=168&url_tabelle=tab_websegmente |date=22 May 2020 }}</ref> After the [[Congress of Vienna]] the territories of the later administrative regions (''[[Regierungsbezirk]]e'') of [[Regierungsbezirk Osnabrück|Osnabrück]] and [[Regierungsbezirk Aurich|Aurich]] transferred to the Kingdom of Hanover. The [[Grand Duchy of Oldenburg]] and the [[Schaumburg-Lippe|Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe]] retained state autonomy. Nevertheless, the entire Weser-Ems region (including the city of [[Bremen]]) were grouped in 1920 into a Lower Saxon Constituency Association (''Wahlkreisverband IX (Niedersachsen)''). This indicates that at that time the western administrations of the [[Prussia]]n Province of Hanover and the state of [[Oldenburg (state)|Oldenburg]] were perceived as being "Lower Saxon".

The forerunners of today's state of Lower Saxony were lands that were geographically and, to some extent, institutionally interrelated from very early on. The [[County of Schaumburg]] (not to be confused with the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe) around the towns of [[Rinteln]] and [[Hessisch Oldendorf]] did indeed belong to the Prussian province of [[Hesse-Nassau]] until 1932, a province that also included large parts of the present state of Hesse, including the cities of [[Kassel]], [[Wiesbaden]] and [[Frankfurt am Main]]; but in 1932 the County of Schaumburg became part of the Prussian Province of Hanover.

When the [[Nazi Party]] [[Nazi seizure of power|seized power]] in 1933, they quickly transformed Germany into a highly centralised state and divided the entire [[Third Reich]] into ''Gaue'' which largely superseded (but did not outright replace) Germany's traditional federal system. Nevertheless, some changes to the old state and provincial borders were made in 1937, notably including the city of [[Cuxhaven]] being fully integrated into the Prussian Province of Hanover under the [[Greater Hamburg Act]]. The effect of this Nazi-era change was that in 1946, after the Third Reich had collapsed and when state of Lower Saxony was founded, only four states needed to be merged. With the exception of Bremen and the areas that were ceded to the [[Soviet Occupation Zone]] in 1945, all those areas allocated to the new state of Lower Saxony in 1946, had already been merged into the "Constituency Association of Lower Saxony" in 1920.

In a lecture on 14 September 2007, Dietmar von Reeken described the emergence of a "Lower Saxony consciousness" in the 19th century, the geographical basis of which was used to invent a territorial construct: the resulting [[local heritage]] societies (''Heimatvereine'') and their associated magazines routinely used the terms "Lower Saxony" or "Lower Saxon" in their names. At the end of the 1920s in the context of discussions about a reform of the Reich, and promoted by the expanding local heritage movement (''Heimatbewegung''), a 25-year conflict started between "Lower Saxony" and "Westphalia". The supporters of this dispute were administrative officials and politicians, but regionally focussed scientists of various disciplines were supposed to have fuelled the arguments. In the 1930s, a real Lower Saxony did not yet exist, but there were a plethora of institutions that would have called themselves "Lower Saxon". The motives and arguments in the disputes between "Lower Saxony" and "Westphalia" were very similar on both sides: economic interests, political aims, cultural interests and historical aspects.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id%3D1753%26count%3D218%26recno%3D32%26sort%3Dort%26order%3Ddown%26geschichte%3D80 |title=Martin Dröge: ''Räume, Grenzen, Identitäten – Westfalen als Gegenstand landes- und regionalgeschichtlicher Forschung'' |publisher=Hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de |access-date=29 October 2012 |archive-date=21 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130521093409/http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id%3D1753%26count%3D218%26recno%3D32%26sort%3Dort%26order%3Ddown%26geschichte%3D80 |url-status=live }}</ref>