affairs appointed a High Commissioner () to each province, who fulfilled his task with the help of a Prussian government-appointed provincial council (). In 1881 the final province of the Kingdom of Prussia was established when Berlin was separated from Brandenburg. Berlin (On 1 April 1881 the city was separated from Brandenburg to become a city-province. Its lord mayor () carried out the duties of a Landesdirektor in the other provinces, while the city council doubled as the provincial committee. The Prussian government-appointed chief of police () served as the High Commissioner of Berlin.) In 1918 following World War I the German Empire was dissolved and replaced by the Weimar Republic. The following were the existing Prussian provinces: Berlin Brandenburg (Potsdam; from 1881 on without Berlin, but provincial offices remained in Berlin); regions: Frankfurt and East Prussia (Königsberg in Prussia); regions: Allenstein (as of 1905), Gumbinnen and Königsberg Hanover (Hanover;); regions: , Hanover, , Lüneburg, and Stade Hesse-Nassau (Kassel;); regions: Kassel and Wiesbaden Hohenzollern (Sigmaringen); region: Sigmaringen Pomerania (Stettin); regions: Köslin, Stettin and Stralsund Posen (Posen); regions: Bromberg and Posen Rhineland (Düsseldorf as to provincial self-rule, Koblenz as to High Commissioner offices); regions: , Cologne, Düsseldorf, Koblenz and Trier Saxony (Magdeburg); regions: , Magdeburg and Schleswig-Holstein (Kiel;); regions: Holstein (till 1868) and Schleswig Silesia (Breslau); regions: , Liegnitz and Oppeln Westphalia (Münster); regions: Arnsberg, Minden and Münster West Prussia (Danzig;); regions: Danzig and Marienwerder Weimar Republic After the fall of the German Empire the Kingdom of Prussia was reconstituted with a republican government as the Free State of Prussia. The Free State promoted the democratisation of the provinces, the provincial parliaments (Provinziallandtage) were elected in direct elections by the voters, unlike before when elected county councillors chose from their midst members for the provincial parliaments. Prussia had to cede virtually all territory belonging to the provinces of Posen and West Prussia to the newly created state of Poland and the League of Nations mandate of the Free City of Danzig. Smaller areas had been ceded to Belgium (East Cantons, formerly Rhineland), Czechoslovakia (Hlučín Region, formerly Silesia), Denmark (Northern Schleswig, formerly Schleswig-Holstein), the League of Nations mandate of the Memel Territory (formerly East Prussia), Poland (eastern Upper Silesia, formerly Prov. of Silesia), and the Mandatory Saar (League of Nations) (formerly Rhineland). Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, the Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich was enacted on 30