Realm
Semi-autonomous European city-state (1920–1939)
The Free City of Danzig was a city-state under the protection and oversight of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrounding areas. The country was established on 15 November 1920, per the terms of Article 100 of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, following the end of World War I.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Free City of Danzig”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Free City of Danzig (German: Freie Stadt Danzig; Polish: Wolne Miasto Gdańsk) was a city-state under the protection and oversight of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrounding areas. The country was established on 15 November 1920, per the terms of Article 100 (Section XI of Part III) of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, following the end of World War I.
Although predominantly German-populated, the territory was bound by the imposed union with Poland, which covered foreign policy, defense, customs, railways, and post, and remained distinct from both the post-war Weimar Republic and the newly independent Polish Republic. Additionally, Poland was granted certain rights related to port facilities in the city.
In the 1920 Constituent Assembly election, the Polish Party received over 6% of the vote; however, its percentage of votes later declined to approximately 3%. A large number of Danzig Poles voted for the Catholic Centre Party instead. In 1921, Poland began developing the city of Gdynia, a mid-sized fishing town. This new port, located north of Danzig, was established on territory awarded in 1919, known as the Polish Corridor. By 1933, the commerce passing through Gdynia exceeded that of Danzig. By 1936, the city's Senate had a majority of local Nazis, and agitation to rejoin Germany was stepped up.
After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Nazis abolished the Free City and incorporated the area into the newly formed Reichsgau of Danzig-West Prussia. The Nazis classified the Poles and Jews living in the city as subhumans, subjecting them to discrimination, forced labor, and extermination at Nazi concentration camps, including nearby Stutthof (now Sztutowo, Poland). Upon the city's capture in the early months of 1945 by the Soviet and Polish troops, a significant number of German inhabitants perished in ill-prepared and over-delayed attempts to evacuate by sea, while the remainder fled or were expelled. The city was fully integrated into Poland due to the Potsdam Agreement, while members of the pre-war Polish ethnic minority began returning, and new Polish settlers started arriving. Gdańsk suffered severe underpopulation due to these events and did not recover until the late 1950s.
The Free City of Danzig included the city of Danzig (Gdańsk), the towns of Zoppot (Sopot), Oliva (Oliwa), Tiegenhof (Nowy Dwór Gdański), Neuteich (Nowy Staw), and some 252 villages and 63 hamlets, covering a total area of 1,966 square kilometres (759 sq mi). The cities of Danzig (since 1818) and Zoppot (since 1920) formed autonomous cities (Stadtkreise), whereas all other towns and municipalities were part of one of the three rural districts (Landkreise), Danziger Höhe, Danziger Niederung (both seated in Danzig city), and Großes Werder, seated in Tiegenhof.
In the east, the Free City encompassed much of the Vistula Fens, a broad and flat region at the mouth of the Vistula River which had been heavily cultivated for centuries. The Nogat River marked the border between the Free City and Germany. The Tiege River rose near the tripoint between the Free City of Danzig, East Prussia, and Poland, and flowed through the towns of Neuteich and Tiegenhof. The territory of the Free City extended to the western end of the Vistula Spit.
In the west, the landscape was much more hilly, being located on the eastern end of the Kashubian Lake District. The Mottlau River picked up numerous tributaries, including the Kladau and the Radaune, on its way northward to the city of Danzig itself and from thence to the Dead Vistula and the Baltic Sea.
In 1928, its territory covered 1,952 km2, including 58 square kilometers of freshwater surface. The border had a length of 290.5 km (180.5 mi), of which the coastline accounted for 66.35 km (41.23 mi) (although coastline measures are not well-defined).
Danzig had an early history of independence. It was a leading player in the Prussian Confederation, which was directed against the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights. The Confederation stipulated with the Polish king, Casimir IV Jagiellon, that the Polish Crown would be invested as head of state of the western parts of Prussia (Royal Prussia). In contrast, Ducal Prussia remained a Polish fief. Danzig and other cities, such as Elbing and Thorn, financed most of the warfare and enjoyed high city autonomy.
In 1569, when Royal Prussia's estates agreed to incorporate the region into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the city insisted on preserving its special status. It defended itself through the Siege of Danzig in 1577 to protect its special privileges. Subsequently, it insisted on negotiating by sending emissaries directly to the Polish king. Danzig's location as a deep-water port where the Vistula River met the Baltic Sea had made it into one of the wealthiest cities in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, as grain from Poland and Ukraine was shipped down the Vistula on barge to be loaded onto ships in Danzig, where it was shipped on to western Europe. As many merchants shipping the grain from Danzig were Dutch and built Dutch-style houses for themselves, leading to other Danzigers imitating them, the city was thus given a distinctively Dutch appearance. Danzig became known as "the Amsterdam of the East", a wealthy seaport and trading crossroads that linked Western and Eastern European economies. Its location, where the Vistula flowed into the Baltic, led to various powers competing to rule the city.
Although Danzig became part of the Kingdom of Prussia following the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, Prussia was subsequently conquered by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806. In September 1807, Napoleon declared Danzig a semi-independent client state of the French Empire, known as the Free City of Danzig. It lasted seven years, until it was reincorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia in 1814, following Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Leipzig (also known as the Battle of Nations) at the hands of a coalition that included Russia, Austria, and Prussia.
Point 13 of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points called for Polish independence to be restored and for Poland to have "secure access to the sea", a promise that implied that Danzig, which occupied a strategic location where the Vistula River flowed into the Baltic Sea, should become part of Poland. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Polish delegation, led by Roman Dmowski, asked for Wilson to honor point 13 of the Fourteen Points by transferring Danzig to Poland, arguing that Poland would not be economically viable without Danzig and that since the city had been part of Poland until 1793, it was rightfully part of Poland anyway. However, Wilson had promised that national self-determination would be the basis of the Treaty of Versailles. As 90% of the people in Danzig in this period were German, the Allied leaders at the Paris Peace Conference compromised by creating the Free City of Danzig, a city-state in which Poland had certain special rights. It was felt that including a city that was 90% German into Poland would be a violation of the principle of national self-determination, but at the same time, the promise in the Fourteen Points of allowing Poland "secure access to the sea" gave Poland a claim on Danzig, hence the compromise of the Free City of Danzig.
The Free City of Danzig was primarily the result of British diplomacy, as both French Premier Georges Clemenceau and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson supported the Polish claim to Danzig (Gdańsk). Only objections from the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, prevented Danzig from being awarded to Poland. Despite creating the Free City, the British did not believe in the viability of the Free City of Danzig; Lloyd George wrote at the time: "France would tomorrow fight for Alsace if her right to it were contested. But would we make war for Danzig?" The Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote in the summer of 1918 that the Germans had such a ferocious contempt for Poles that it was unwise for Germany to lose any territory to Poland, even if morally justified, as the Germans would never accept losing land to the despised Poles, and such a situation was bound to cause a war. During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the British consistently sought to minimize German territorial losses to Poland because the Germans had such an utter contempt for the Poles, together with the rest of the Slavic peoples, that such losses were bound to wound their feelings deeply and cause a war. For all the bitterness of the French–German enmity, the Germans had a certain grudging respect for the French that did not extend to the Poles. During the Paris Peace Conference, a commission of inquiry chaired by British historian James Headlam-Morley, which was investigating where the borders between Germany and Poland, began researching the history of Danzig. Upon discovering that Danzig had been a Free City in the past, Headlam-Morley devised what he regarded as a brilliant compromise solution, under which Danzig would become a Free City again, belonging to neither Germany nor Poland. As the British opposed Danzig becoming part of Poland, and the French and Americans opposed Danzig remaining part of Germany, Headlam-Morley's compromise of the Free City of Danzig was accepted.
The representatives of the German population of Danzig complained about being severed from Germany, and constantly demanded that the Free City of Danzig be reincorporated into the Reich. The Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan wrote that a sense of Danzig national identity emerged during the Free City's existence, and the German population of Danzig did not always regard themselves as Germans who had been unjustly taken out of Germany. The loss of Danzig deeply hurt German national pride, and, in the interwar period, German nationalists spoke of the "open wound in the east" that was the Free City of Danzig. However, until the building of Gdynia, almost all of Poland's exports went through Danzig, and Polish public opinion was opposed to Germany having a "choke-hold" on the Polish economy.
The Free City was to be represented abroad by Poland and be in a customs union. The German railway line that connected the Free City with newly created Poland was to be administered by Poland, as were all rail lines in the territory of the Free City. On 9 November 1920, a convention was signed between the Polish government and the Danzig authorities, providing for a Polish diplomatic representative in Danzig. In Article 6, the Polish government undertook not to conclude any international agreements regarding Danzig without first consulting the government of the Free City.
A separate Polish post office was established in addition to the existing municipal one.
Unlike Mandatory territories, which were entrusted to member countries, the Free City of Danzig (like the Territory of the Saar Basin) remained directly under the authority of the League of Nations. Representatives from various countries assumed the role of High Commissioner:
The League of Nations refused to allow the city-state to use Hanseatic City as part of its official name, referring to Danzig's long-standing membership in the Hanseatic League.
With the creation of the Free City in the aftermath of World War I, a security police force was created on 19 August 1919. On 9 April 1920, a military style marching band, the Musikkorps, was formed. Led by composer Ernst Stieberitz, the police band gained widespread recognition in the city and abroad. In 1921, Danzig's government reformed the entire institution and established the Schutzpolizei, or protection police. Helmut Froböss became President of the Police (i.e., Chief) on 1 April 1921. He served in this capacity until the German annexation of the city.
The police initially operated from twelve precincts and seven registration points. In 1926, the number of precincts was reduced to seven.
After the Nazi takeover of the Senate, the police were increasingly used to suppress free speech and political dissent. In 1933, Froböss ordered the left-wing newspapers Danziger Volksstimme and Danziger Landeszeitung to suspend publications for two months and eight days, respectively.
By 1939, Polish-German relations had worsened, and war seemed a likely possibility. The police began planning to seize Polish installations within the city in the event of conflict. Ultimately, the Danzig police participated in the September Campaign, fighting alongside the local SS and the German Army at the city's Polish post office and at Westerplatte.
Even though Nazi Germany formally annexed the Free City in October 1939, the police force more or less continued to operate as a law enforcement agency. The Stutthof concentration camp, 35 km east of the city, was run by the President of the Police as an internment camp from 1939 until November 1941. Administration was finally dissolved when the Soviets occupied the city in 1945.
Around 1600, the city's population was composed of over 90% Germans and adherents of Protestantism. Around 1700, more than 80% of the inhabitants were Protestants, followed by Catholics with about 10% and a smaller but significant group of Calvinists, while German remained the dominant language. According to another source, in year 1770, shortly before the Partitions of Poland, only 58% of the inhabitants were Germans, while 42% were all others (including Poles and Kashubians). By 1816, the proportion of Catholics had risen to 23.6%, whereas Protestants accounted for 70%. In 1890, according to Stefan Ramułt there were 92.28% Germans, 0.94% Poles, 4.50% Kashubians, 2.11% Jews and 0.17% others.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Free City of Danzig”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.