The Gau Munich-Upper Bavaria came under the leadership of Adolf Wagner on 1 November 1929,[4] when the Gau system in Bavaria was formalised, and remained under his control until his death in 1944. The Gau was actually a merger of the previously separate Gaue Munich and Upper Bavaria. Until 1930, Bavaria, as the heartland of the Nazi movement in the 1920s, was seen by Hitler as his personal realm, the local Gaue commonly being called Untergaue (English:Sub-Gaue), to show their dependence on the head of the party.