| Conventional Long Name: | Gau Main Franconia |
| Common Name: | Gau Mainfranken |
| Subdivision: | Gau |
| Nation: | Nazi Germany |
| Image Map Caption: | Map of Nazi Germany showing its administrative subdivisions (Gaue and Reichsgaue). |
| Capital: | Würzburg |
| P1: | Bavaria |
| Flag P1: | Flag of Bavaria (lozengy).svg |
| S1: | Bavaria |
| Flag S1: | Flag of Bavaria (lozengy).svg |
| Year Start: | 1929 |
| Date Start: | 1 March |
| Event End: | Disestablishment |
| Year End: | 1945 |
| Date End: | 8 May |
| Title Leader: | Gauleiter |
| Leader1: | Otto Hellmuth |
| Year Leader1: | 1929 - 1945 |
| Stat Year1: | 17 May 1939[1] |
| Stat Pop1: | 844732 |
| Today: | Germany |
The Gau Main Franconia (German: Gau Mainfranken), formed as Gau Lower Franconia (German: Gau Unterfranken) on 1 March 1929 and renamed Gau Main Franconia on 30 July 1935,[2] was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Lower Franconia, Bavaria, from 1933 to 1945. Before that, from 1929 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area.
The Nazi Gau (plural Gaue) system was originally established in a party conference on 22 May 1926, in order to improve administration of the party structure. From 1933 onward, after the Nazi seizure of power, the Gaue increasingly replaced the German states as administrative subdivisions in Germany.[3]
At the head of each Gau stood a Gauleiter, a position which became increasingly more powerful, especially after the outbreak of the Second World War, with little interference from above. Local Gauleiters often held government positions as well as party ones and were in charge of, among other things, propaganda and surveillance and, from September 1944 onward, the Volkssturm and the defense of the Gau.[4]
The position of Gauleiter in Main Franconia was held by Otto Hellmuth for the duration of the existence of the Gau, with Ludwig Pösl (1931–37) and Wilhelm Kühnreich (1937–45) as his deputies.[5] [6]