The
Free State of Oldenburg was a state of the
Weimar RepublicThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich , however...
. It was established in 1918 following the abdication of the Grand Duke
Frederick Augustus IIFrederick Augustus II was the last ruling grand duke of Oldenburg. He married Princess Elisabeth Anna of Prussia, daughter of Princess Maria Anna of Anhalt-Dessau and Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia....
following the
German RevolutionThe German Revolution was the politically-driven civil conflict in Germany at the end of World War I. The period lasted from November 1918 until the formal establishment of the Weimar Republic in August 1919....
.
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The
Free State of Oldenburg was a state of the
Weimar RepublicThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich , however...
. It was established in 1918 following the abdication of the Grand Duke
Frederick Augustus IIFrederick Augustus II was the last ruling grand duke of Oldenburg. He married Princess Elisabeth Anna of Prussia, daughter of Princess Maria Anna of Anhalt-Dessau and Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia....
following the
German RevolutionThe German Revolution was the politically-driven civil conflict in Germany at the end of World War I. The period lasted from November 1918 until the formal establishment of the Weimar Republic in August 1919....
.
In 1937, it lost the exclave districts of
EutinEutin is the district capital of Eastern Holstein located in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. As of 2005, it had some 17,000 inhabitants....
near the Baltic coast and
BirkenfeldBirkenfeld is a municipality, capital of the district Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated in the Hunsrück, approx. 15 km south-west of Idar-Oberstein....
in southwestern Germany to Prussia and gained the City of
Wilhelmshaven||-||}Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of Jadebusen, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...
; however, this was a formality, as the Hitler regime had
de factoDe facto is a Latin expression that means "by [the] fact". In law, it is meant to mean "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but without being officially established"...
abolished the federal states in 1934.
By the beginning of World War II in 1939, as a result of these territorial changes, Oldenburg had an area of and 580,000 inhabitants.
After
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Oldenburg was merged into the newly founded state of
Lower SaxonyLower Saxony lies in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen Bundesländer of Germany...
as the administrative region (Verwaltungsbezirk) of Oldenburg, both of which became a part of Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.