Free State of Anhalt

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The Free State of Anhalt (German: Freistaat Anhalt) was a state of the Weimar Republic from 1919 to 1933 and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. It is today part of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The Duchy of Anhalt became the Free State of Anhalt during the German revolution of 1918–1919. The ruling House of Ascania abdicated peacefully, and a constitutional assembly was elected which drew up a republican constitution for Anhalt as a member state of the Weimar Republic. Throughout most of the Republic's fourteen-year life, the Social Democratic Party was the dominant political force in Anhalt, and it saw relatively little of the violence that flared up in other parts of Weimar-era Germany. Anhalt was nevertheless the first Weimar state to elect a local parliament with a Nazi majority (May 1932). Anhalt became part of the Nazi Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt in 1933. Late in World War II, Dessau, Anhalt's capital city, was almost completely destroyed by Allied bombing, as was the smaller city of...

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