Free City of Danzig

The Free City of Danzig (German: Freie Stadt Danzig, Polish: Wolne Miasto Gdańsk) was a city-state autonomous community established on June 10, 1920 in the present Polish city of Gdansk (from 1772 to 1920, part of Prussia), according to Part III, section IX, of the Treaty of Versailles (1919). Danzig ceased to be part of Germany and came under the guardianship of the League of Nations, granting Poland diplomatic and economic privileges (this country exercised a protectorate over the city).

The city lost its status as a city-state after it was incorporated by Nazi Germany on September 2, 1939 and later transferred to Poland, after the end of World War II.

History

Origins

The city obtained semi-autonomous state status with Napoleon I, in 1807. After the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, the city was again integrated into Prussia. In 1920, after the Treaty of Versailles, Danzig regained its former autonomy, although under the control of Poland and the League of Nations.

According to the convention between Danzig and Poland, concluded in 1920:

In accordance with the provisions of the Convention, Poland will be responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs and for the protection of the interests of citizens of the Free City of Danzig abroad, to conclude international agreements on behalf of the Free City, and to agree on the external obligations of loans by the free city, and a record of ships that will be the flag of Danzig.

• The territory of the free city belonged to the Republic of Poland for customs control, which was carried out by Polish customs officials on the border between Poland and Dánzig, Germany-Dánzig, and the customs of the sea.
• Poland ensured the right of direct export and import of goods by the port of Danzig, maintaining its own postal service, telephones and telegraphs, Poland owned the railway in the free city (except trams).
• Establishment of a Joint Navigation Board and for the Government of the port of Dánzig (with parity of both parties, five representatives of each of them and the president jointly appointed by the Polish Government and the authorities of the Free City of Dánzig), for the management of the respective ports, the harbour facilities and the freedom of navigation in the Calderón.

Establishment of the city-state

By the end of World War I (1919), the city of Danzig had become a center of territorial disputes. On the one hand, Germany claimed the territory for its large population of German origin; and on the other, Poland claimed the city for its Polish past and its better access to the Baltic Sea.

Its legal origin is found in the signing of the Treaty of Versailles (articles 100-108), which established the following:

• The city of Danzig is not constituted as a state, but as a free international city, under the external protection of Poland (which represents it internationally and deals with its foreign defence) according to the Polish-Dánzig Treaty of 1920, which is insured by the SDN.
• It had a constitution drawn up in 1922, which was guaranteed by the League of Nations and constituted by a Senate and a Diet.
• With regard to Poland, the city of Danzig had to ensure equal treatment for Polish vessels; later, on 13 August 1932 and 18 September 1933, a regulation was established for Polish warships.
• Danzig and Poland constituted a customs union.
• A Polish post office would also be established as part of equal treatment.
• The free city railways were insured for Polish use.
• Danzig was a free zone, administered by a Port Council, composed of curators from both places.
• Diplomatically, Danzig did not have any active right of legation and the Polish representative was qualified as Commissioner General with residence in Danzig. Diplomatic relations involving the free city were under the direction of Poland with the agreement of Danzig.
• The League of Nations was responsible for the protection of the city, which was guaranteed by article 10 of it.

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  Local ticket.

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  Mailing seal

End of autonomy

German troops during the assault of the post office of Danzig (September 1939).

On October 15, 1930, Albert Forster became Nazi Party leader in the city and in the spring of 1933 led the Nazi takeover of Dánzig. In 1936, the city's senate had a majority of local Nazis, with Arthur Greiser as president, and agitation to reunify the city with Germany intensified. After the Nazi takeover of the senate, the police were increasingly used more to suppress free speech and political dissent. The Social Democratic party was banned on October 14, 1936. In 1937, Forster boasted of his fight against the communists and other "subhumans." Thereafter, Danzig's Jews were subjected to severe restrictions and confiscations. On the last two Sundays before Christmas, Forster ordered brown shirts placed in front of Jewish stores, to prevent Danzig customers from entering the stores. Due to anti-Semitism, persecution and oppression, many Jews fled.

The Danzig crisis immediately preceded World War II. It was the last irredentist demand that Adolf Hitler demands after having achieved the remilitarization of the Rhineland and the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland. The crisis begins in April 1939, the moment chosen by the Führer to deliver a speech to the Reichstag demanding the restitution of German sovereignty over Danzig, as well as an extraterritorial railway and highway that would cross the Polish corridor (which separated East Prussia from the rest of the German territory since the end of the First World War as a consequence of the Treaty of Versailles).

In the early morning of September 1, 1939, after the Polish government refused to meet the demands of Germany and the German population of Danzig, the German battleship SMS Schleswig-Holstein began World War II by bombarding the fort Westerplatte on the Baltic Sea coast. Mass arrests began in the Free City of Danzig. About 1,500 people were arrested on the first day of the war; around 1000 were boarded at the Victoria School. Up to 4,500 members of the Polish minority were rounded up and many of them executed. In the city itself, hundreds of prisoners were subjected to cruel Nazi executions and experiments, including the castration of men and the sterilization of women considered dangerous to &# 34;purity of the Nordic race" and beheading by guillotine.

Towards the end of the war, in 1945, 90% of the city was destroyed by fighting. The Red Army entered Danzig on March 30, 1945. By then, about 90% of the population had fled or died, the tragedy of the Wilhelm Gustloff liner being worth remembering. The city was definitively ceded to Poland after the Potsdam Conference. As of 1947, some 126,472 Germans had left Gdansk^{[citation needed]} and 101,873 Poles had been expelled from Central Poland, plus 26,629 from Eastern Poland, forced to moved to the city by the Soviets, who had annexed these territories to the USSR.^{[citation needed]}