A Gauleiter was a leader of a local branch of the NSDAP (more commonly known as the Nazi Party) or the head of a Reichsgau (an administrative division of the state). The German word Leiter means leader, whilst the Gau was the region itself. Only five of the Nazi Gauleiter were university or technical school graduates.

The only Reichsgaue were the former states of Austria, the Sudetenland, Wartheland, and Danzig-Westpreussen, all of which were new territories annexed to Germany since 1938. The rest of the Reich remained administratively divided into Länder.

Joseph Goebbels was made a Gauleiter over a small party organization in Berlin in 1926.