Free City of Danzig

Territory 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 . The cities of Danzig (since 1818) and Zoppot (since 1920) formed autonomous cities (), whereas all other towns and municipalities were part of one of the three rural districts (), , (both seated in Danzig city), and , 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 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 , of which the coastline accounted for (although coastline measures are not well-defined). Periods of independence and autonomy Danzig had an early history of independence. It was a leading player in the Prussian Confederation, which was directed against the Teutonic Monastic State of Prussia. 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. 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. 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?" 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. 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. 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. 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. Polish rights declared by the Treaty of Versailles 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. League of Nations High Commissioners 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. State Constabulary 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. 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. == Population ==

The demographics of the Free City are a matter of some dispute over the period of its existence. In 1770, before the partitions of Poland, of all inhabitants of the city of Danzig 58% were Germans and 42% were Poles, Kashubians and others. In 1890, after a century of Germanisation, according to Stefan Ramułt there were 92.28% Germans, 5.44% Kashubians and Poles, 2.11% Jews and 0.17% others in the city of Danzig itself. On the other hand, the entire territory of the future Free City of Danzig in 1910 had 329,781 inhabitants, of whom, according to the official census, 312,358 (94.7%) were German-speakers, 14,106 (4.3%) spoke Polish or Kashubian, 2,716 (0.8%) were Jews and 601 (0.2%) were all others. The Free City's population rose from 357,000 (1919) to 408,000 in 1929; according to the official census of 1923, 95% were Germans, with 3.72% either Kashubians or Poles, however in 1920 election 6.1% of the inhabitants of the Free City voted for the Polish Party. According to E. Cieślak, the population registers of the city of Danzig show that in 1929 the Polish population numbered 35,000, or 10.7%. Similar figure of 9.1% Poles and Kashubians in the Free City in 1929 is given by T. Kijeński. Some estimates put the proportion of Danzig Poles at between 10 and 13%. Henryk Stępniak estimates the 1929 Polish population as around 22,000, or around 6% of the population, increasing to around 13% in the 1930s. or around 25% in 1936. In contrast, Stefan Samerski estimates about 10 percent of the 130,000 Catholics were Polish. Andrzej Drzycimski estimates that Polish population at the end of 30s reached 20% (including Poles who arrived after the war). The Polish population increased disproportionately in the 1920s and 1930s and was estimated at 20% shortly before the start of World War II in 1939. The accuracy of demographic estimates is complicated by the discrepancy between the ethnic and linguistic identities of the Danzig population - while 95% of the inhabitants of the Free City of Danzig were German-speaking, many Poles were bilingual and also spoke German, and were included in such estimates. Another significant minority was the Kashubs, another West Slavic group who derived their language from Pomeranian and had their own independent identity. This was further exacerbated by anti-Catholic legislation introduced by NSDAP-dominated Danzig Senate, which involved arrests of Catholic clergy as well as the activists and members of the Catholic Centre Party. The Catholic Centre Party was friendly to the Danzig Poles, and many Poles voted for the Centre Party instead of Polish organisations. The German Catholic clergy in Danzig also strongly supported the Polish minority, and the Bishop of Danzig, Edward O'Rourke, actively fought for the interests of Danzig Poles. According to Kijański, many Poles in Danzig did not reveal their nationality in the census as a result of this intimidation, as well as pressure from German employers. He estimated that Poles accounted for 14.5% of the Free City's permanent population, but noted that the actual number of Poles may have been higher, as Poles made up 60% of all foreigners in Danzig at the time. He appeared in 104 films between 1956 and 2002. • Ike Aronowicz (1923 in Danzig – 2009 in Israel), captain of the immigrant ship SS Exodus, which unsuccessfully tried to dock in Mandatory Palestine with Holocaust survivors on July 11, 1947. • Elisabeth Becker (1923 in Danzig – executed 1946 in Biskupia Górka) was a concentration camp guard in World War II. • Ingrid van Bergen (1931 in Danzig - 2025 in Eyendorf) was a German film actress. She had appeared in 100 films since 1954. Convicted of manslaughter in 1977. • Miltiades Caridis (1923 in Danzig – 1998 in Athens) was a German-Greek conductor; his family moved to Greece in 1938. • Zygmunt Chychła (1926 in Gdańsk – 2009 in Hamburg) was a Polish boxer. He won the Olympic gold medal for Poland at the 1952 Summer Olympics. • Anna M. Cienciala (1929 in Danzig – 2014 in Florida) was a Polish-American historian and author. • Holger Czukay (1938 in Danzig – 2017 in Weilerswist) was a German musician, co-founder of the krautrock group Can. • Horst Ehmke (1927 in Danzig – 2017 in Bonn) was a German lawyer, law professor and SPD politician, served as Federal Minister of Justice (1969). • Jörg-Peter Ewert (born 1938 in Danzig) is a German neurophysiologist and researcher into Neuroethology. • Günter Grass (1927 in Danzig – 2015 in Lübeck) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. • Ursula Happe (1926 in Danzig – 2021 in Dortmund) was a German swimmer and Olympic champion. She competed at the 1956 Summer Olympics and won the gold medal in 200 m breaststroke. • Hans Albert Hohnfeldt (1897 in Neufahrwasser – 1948) Nazi Party Gauleiter in Danzig. • Klaus Kinski (1926 in Zopot – 1991 in Lagunitas, California) was a controversial German actor. • Wanda Klaff (1922 in Danzig – executed 1946 in Biskupia Górka) was a Nazi camp overseer. • Erhard Krack (1931 in Danzig – 2000 in Berlin) was an East German politician and mayor of East Berlin from 1974 to 1990. • Zdzisław Kuźniar (born 1931 in Gdańsk) is a Polish actor. • Hanna-Renate Laurien (1928 in Danzig – 2010 in Berlin) was a German CDU politician. • Jack Mandelbaum (1927 in Danzig – 2023 Naples, Florida) was a Holocaust survivor. • Rupert Neudeck (1939 in Danzig – 2016 in Siegburg), correspondent for Deutschlandfunk and founder of Cap Anamur, a humanitarian organisation. • Zygmunt Pawłowicz (1927 in Danzig – 2010 in Gdańsk) ordained a Catholic priest in 1952, was the Polish Auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Gdańsk from 1985 until 2005. • Avi Pazner (born 1937 in Danzig) is a retired Israeli diplomat. • Richard Pratt (1934 in Danzig – 2009 in Kew, Victoria) was a prominent Australian businessman, chairman of Visy. His family moved to Australia in 1938. • Georg Preuß (1920 in Danzig – 1991 Clenze) was a mid-ranking commander in the Waffen-SS, a convicted war criminal. • Meta Preuß (1903–1981), one of seven members of the Communist Party (Free City of Danzig), elected to the Volkstag in 1930. • Henry Rosovsky (1927 in Danzig – 2022 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) was an economic historian, specializing in East Asia, born of Russian Jewish parents. • Hermann Salomon (1938 in Danzig – 2020 in Mainz) was a German javelin thrower who competed in the 1960, 1964, and 1968 Summer Olympics. • Meir Shamgar (1925 in Danzig – 2019 in Jerusalem) was President of the Israeli Supreme Court from 1983 to 1995. • Zalman Shoval (born 1930 in Danzig) is an Israeli politician and diplomat. • Arne Slettebak (1925 in Danzig – 1999 in Worthington, Ohio) was an American astronomer. • Wolfgang Völz (1930 in Danzig – 2018 in Berlin) was a German actor, known for his roles in theatre plays, TV shows, feature films and taped radio shows. • F. K. Waechter (1937 in Danzig – 2005 in Frankfurt) was a German cartoonist, author and playwright. • David Dushman (1923 in Danzig – 2021 in Munich) was a Jewish-Soviet Red Army soldier who assisted in the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Religion In 1924, 54.7% of the populace was Protestant (220,731 persons, mostly Lutherans within the united old-Prussian church), 34.5% was Roman Catholic (140,797 persons), and 2.4% Jewish (9,239 persons). Other Protestants included 5,604 Mennonites, 1,934 Calvinists (Reformed), 1,093 Baptists, 410 Free Religionists. The population also included 2,129 dissenters, 1,394 faithful of other religions and denominations, and 664 irreligionists. The Jewish community grew from 2,717 in 1910 to 7,282 in 1923 and 10,448 in 1929, many of them immigrants from Poland and Russia. Regional Synodal Federation of the Free City of Danzig quarter The mostly Lutheran and partially Reformed congregations situated in the territory of the Free City, which previously used to belong to the Ecclesiastical Province of West Prussia of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union (EKapU), were transformed into the Regional Synodal Federation of the Free City of Danzig after 1920. The executive body of that ecclesiastical province, the consistory (est. 1 November 1886), was seated in Danzig. After 1920 it was restricted in its responsibility to those congregations within the Free City's territory. First General Superintendent (1920–1933) and then Bishop (1933–1945) presided over the consistory. Unlike the Second Polish Republic, which opposed the cooperation of the with EKapU, Volkstag and the Senate of Danzig approved cross-border religious bodies. Danzig's Regional Synodal Federation — just as the regional synodal federation of the autonomous Memelland — retained the status of an ecclesiastical province within EKapU. After the German annexation of the Free City in 1939, the EKapU merged the Danzig regional synodal federation in 1940 into the Ecclesiastical Region of Danzig-West Prussia. This included the Polish congregations of the United Evangelical Church in Poland in the homonymous Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and the German congregations in the West Prussia governorate. Danzig's consistory functioned as an executive body for that region. With the flight and expulsion of most ethnically German Protestant parishioners from the area of the Free City of Danzig between 1945 and 1948, the congregations vanished. In March 1945, the consistory had relocated to Lübeck and opened a refugee centre for Danzigers (Hilfsstelle beim evangelischen Konsistorium Danzig) led by Upper Consistorial Councillor . The Lutheran congregation of St. Mary's Church could relocate its valuable parament collection and the presbytery granted it on loan to St. Annen Museum in Lübeck after the war. Other Lutheran congregations of Danzig could reclaim their church bells, which the Wehrmacht had requisitioned as non-ferrous metal for war purposes since 1940, but which had survived, not yet melted down, in storage (e.g., ) in the British zone of occupation. The presbyteries usually granted them to Northwestern German Lutheran congregations that had lost bells due to the war. Diocese of Danzig of the Roman Catholic Church in Oliva, Danzig The 36 Catholic parishes in the territory of the Free City in 1922 used to belong in equal shares to the Diocese of Culm, which was mostly Polish, and the Diocese of Ermland, which was mostly German. While the Second Polish Republic wanted all the parishes within the Free City to form part of Polish Culm, Volkstag and Senate wanted them all to become subject to German Ermland. In 1922 the Holy See suspended the jurisdictions of both dioceses over their parishes in the Free State and established an exempt apostolic administration for the territory. The senate also instigated the denaturalisation of O'Rourke, who subsequently became a Polish citizen. O'Rourke was succeeded by Bishop Carl Maria Splett, a native of the Free City area. Splett remained bishop after the German annexation of the Free City. In early 1941, he applied for admitting the Danzig diocese as member in Archbishop Adolf Bertram's Eastern German Ecclesiastical Province and thus at the Fulda Conference of Bishops; however, Bertram, also speaker of the Fulda conference, rejected the request. Any arguments that the Free City of Danzig had been annexed to Nazi Germany did not impress Bertram since Danzig's annexation lacked international recognition. Until the reorganization of the Catholic dioceses in Danzig and the formerly eastern territories of Germany, the diocesan territory remained unaltered and the see exempt. However, with the replacement of Danzig's population between 1945 and 1948 by mostly Catholic Poles, the number of Catholic parishes increased and most formerly Protestant churches were taken over for Catholic services. Jewish Danzigers on Reitbahn Street in Danzig's Rechtstadt quarter Since 1883, most of the Jewish congregations in the later territory of the Free State had merged into the Synagogal Community of Danzig. Only the Jews of Tiegenhof ran their own congregation until 1938. Danzig became a centre of Polish and Russian Jewish emigration to North America. Between 1920 and 1925, 60,000 Jews emigrated via Danzig to the US and Canada. At the same time, between 1923 and 1929, Danzig's own Jewish population increased from roughly 7,000 to 10,500. Native Jews and newcomers established themselves in the city and contributed to its civic life, culture and economy. Danzig became a venue for international meetings of Jewish organisations, such as the convention of delegates from Jewish youth organisations of various nations, attended by David Ben-Gurion, which founded the World Union of Jewish Youth on 2 September 1924 in the Schützenhaus venue. On 21 March 1926, the Zionistische Organisation für Danzig convened delegates of Hechalutz from all over for the first conference in Danzig, using Hebrew as a common language, also attended by Ben Gurion. With a Nazi majority in the Volkstag and Senate, anti-Semitic persecution and discrimination occurred unsanctioned by the authorities. In contrast to Germany, which exercised capital outflow control since 1931, emigration of Danzig's Jews was nonetheless somewhat easier, with capital transfers enabled by the Bank of Danzig. Moreover, the comparatively few Danzig Jews were offered easier refuge in safe countries because of favourable Free City migration quotas. After the anti-Jewish riots of Kristallnacht of 9/10 November 1938 in Germany, similar riots took place on 12/13 November in Danzig. The Great Synagogue was taken over and demolished by the local authorities in 1939. Most Jews had already left the city, and the Jewish Community of Danzig decided to organise its own emigration in early 1939. == Politics ==

Government The Free City was governed by the Senate of the Free City of Danzig, which was elected by the parliament (Volkstag) for a legislative period of four years. The official language was German, although the usage of Polish was guaranteed by law. The political parties in the Free City corresponded with the political parties in Weimar Germany; the most influential parties in the 1920s were the conservative German National People's Party, the Social Democratic Party of the Free City of Danzig and the Catholic Centre Party. A Communist Party was founded in 1921 with its origins in the Spartacus League and the Communist Party of East Prussia. Several liberal parties and Free Voters' Associations existed and ran in the elections with varying success. A Polish Party represented the Polish minority and received between 3% (1933) and 6% (1920) of the vote (in total, 4,358 votes in 1933 and 9,321 votes in 1920). Initially, the Nazi Party had only a small amount of success (0.8% of the vote in 1927) and was even briefly dissolved. The democratic opposition remained strong and was able to temporarily block the Nazi Gleichschaltung policies between 1935 and 1937. German Catholics were supportive of the Polish minority and most Danzig Poles voted for the Catholic Centre Party. Rauschning was removed from his position by Forster and replaced by Arthur Greiser in November 1934. with several politicians being imprisoned and murdered. The economic policy of Danzig's Nazi-led government, which increased the public expenditures for employment-creation programs and the retrenchment of financial aid from Germany led to a devaluation of more than 40% of the Danziger Gulden in 1935. The Gold reserves of the Bank of Danzig declined from 30 million Gulden in 1933 to 13 million in 1935 and the foreign asset reserve from 10 million to 250,000 Gulden. In 1935, Poland protested when Danzig's Senate reduced the value of the Gulden so that it would be the same as the Polish złoty. As in Germany, the Nazis introduced laws mirroring the Enabling Act and Nuremberg laws (November 1938); existing parties and unions were gradually banned. The presence of the League of Nations, however, still guaranteed a minimum of legal certainty. In 1935, the opposition parties, except for the Polish Party, filed a lawsuit to the Danzig High Court in protest against the manipulation of the Volkstag elections. The number of members of the Nazi Party in Danzig increased from 21,861 in June 1934 to 48,345 in September 1938. Foreign relations Foreign relations were handled by the Second Polish Republic. In 1927, the Free City of Danzig sent a military advisory mission to Bolivia. The Bolivian government of Hernando Siles Reyes wanted to continue the pre-World War I German military mission, but the Treaty of Versailles prohibited that. The German officers, including Ernst Röhm, were transferred to the Danzig police force and then sent to Bolivia. In 1929, after problems with the mission, the British embassy handled the return of the German officers. German-Polish tensions The rights of the Second Polish Republic within the territory of the Free City were stipulated in the Treaty of Paris of 9 November 1920 and the Treaty of Warsaw of 24 October 1921. The details of the Polish privileges soon became a permanent matter of disputes between the local populace and the Polish State. While the representatives of the Free City tried to uphold the city's autonomy and sovereignty, Poland sought to extend its privileges. Throughout the Polish–Soviet War, local dockworkers went on strike and refused to unload ammunition supplies for the Polish Army. While the ammunition was finally unloaded by British troops, the incident led to the establishment of a permanent ammunition depot at the Westerplatte and the construction of a trade and naval port in Gdynia, whose total exports and imports surpassed those of Danzig in May 1932. In December 1925, the Council of the League of Nations agreed to the establishment of a Polish military guard of 88 men on the Westerplatte peninsula to protect the war material depot. During the interwar period, the Polish minority was heavily discriminated against by the German population, which openly attacked its members using racist slurs and harassment, and attacks against the Polish consulate by German students were praised by authorities. In June 1932, a crisis broke out when the Polish destroyer ORP Wicher was sent into Danzig harbour without the permission of the Senate to greet a visiting squadron of British destroyers. The crisis was resolved when the Free City granted more access rights to the Polish Navy in exchange for a promise to not take the Wicher back into Danzig harbour. and the presence of Polish war vessels at the harbour. The attempt of the Free City to join the International Labour Organization was rejected by the Permanent Court of International Justice at the League of Nations after protests of the Polish ILO delegate. After Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, the Polish military doubled the number of 88 troops at Westerplatte in order to test the reaction of the new chancellor. After protests, the additional troops were withdrawn. Nazi propaganda used these events in the Volkstag elections of May 1933, in which Nazis won an absolute majority. Until June 1933, the High Commissioner decided in 66 cases of dispute between Danzig and Poland; in 54 cases, one of the parties appealed to the Permanent Court of International Justice. Subsequent disputes were resolved in direct negotiations between the Senate and Poland after both had agreed to abstain from further appeals to the International Court in the summer of 1933 and bilateral agreements were concluded. In the aftermath of the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934, Danzig–Polish relations improved and Adolf Hitler instructed the local Nazi government to cease anti-Polish actions. In return, Poland did not support the actions of the anti-Nazi opposition in Danzig. The Polish Ambassador to Germany, Józef Lipski, stated in a meeting with Hermann Göring "[...] that a National Socialist Senate in Danzig is also most desirable from our point of view, since it brought about a rapprochement between the Free City and Poland, I would like to remind him that we have always kept aloof from internal Danzig problems. In spite of approaches repeatedly made by the opposition parties, we rejected any attempt to draw us into action against the Senate. I mentioned quite confidentially that the Polish minority in Danzig was advised not to join forces with the opposition at the time of elections." When Carl J. Burckhardt became High Commissioner in February 1937, both Poles and Germans openly welcomed his withdrawal, and Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Józef Beck notified him not to "count on the support of the Polish State" in the case of difficulties with the Senate or the Nazi Party. While the Senate appeared to respect the agreements with Poland, the "Nazification of Danzig proceeded relentlessly" and Danzig became a springboard for anti-Polish propaganda among the German and Ukrainian minority in Poland. The Catholic Bishop of Danzig, Edward O'Rourke, was forced to withdraw after he had tried to implement four additional Polish nationals as parish priests in October 1937. The Polish ambassador to Germany, Józef Lipski, declined Ribbentrop's offer, saying that Polish public opinion would not tolerate the Free City joining Germany and predicated that if Warsaw allowed that to happen, then the Sanation military dictatorship that had ruled Poland since 1926 would be overthrown. All through the spring and summer of 1939, there was a massive media campaign in Germany demanding the immediate return of the Free City of Danzig to Germany under the slogan "Home to the Reich!". However, the Danzig crisis was just a pretext for war. Ribbentrop ordered Count Hans-Adolf von Moltke, the German ambassador to Poland, not to negotiate with the Poles over Danzig as it was always Ribbentrop's great fear that the Poles might actually agree to the Free City returning to Germany, thereby depriving the Reich of its pretext for attacking Poland. In the middle of August, Beck offered a concession, saying that Poland was willing to give up its control of Danzig's customs, a proposal which caused fury in Berlin. However, the leaders of the Free City sent a message to Berlin on 19 August 1939 saying: "Gauleiter Forster intends to extend claims [...] Should the Poles yield again it is intended to increase the claims further in order to make accord impossible". The same meeting appointed Forster the Danzig State President, through this was due to Forster's long-running rivalry with Arthur Greiser, a völkisch fanatic who regarded Forster as too soft on the Poles. Both the appointment of Forster as State President and the resolution calling for the Free City to rejoin the Reich were violations of the charter the League of Nations had given Danzig in 1920, and the matter should have been taken to the League of Nations's Security Council for discussion. Since these violations of the Danzig charter would have resulted in the League deposing Danzig's Nazi government, both the French and British prevented the matter from being referred to the Security Council. Instead, the British and French applied strong pressure on the Poles not to send in a military force to depose the Danzig government and appoint a mediator to resolve the crisis. By late August 1939, the crisis continued to escalate with the Senate confiscating on 27 August 1939 stocks of wheat, salt and petrol that belonged to the Polish businesses that were in the process of being exported or imported via the Free City, an action that led to sharp Polish complaints. The same day, 200 Polish workers at the Danzig shipyards were fired without severance pay and their identification papers revoked, meaning that they legally could not live in Danzig anymore. The Danzig government imposed food rationing, the Danzig newspapers took a militantly anti-Polish line, and almost every day there were "incidents" on the border with Poland. Upon anchoring in Danzig harbor, the Schleswig-Holstein ominously aimed its guns at the Polish Military Depot on the Westerplatte peninsula in a provocative gesture that further raised the tensions in the Free City. == World War II and aftermath ==

On 1 September 1939, the day of the German invasion of the Free City of Danzig, Forster signed a law declaring the Free City to be incorporated into Germany. On the same day, Hitler signed a law declaring the law signed by Forster to be German law and the Free City of Danzig was officially incorporated into Germany. The Polish garrison of Westerplatte held out until 7 September. Up to 4,500 members of the Polish minority were arrested with many of them executed. In the city itself hundreds of Polish prisoners were subjected to cruel executions and experiments, which included castration of men and sterilization of women considered dangerous to the "purity of Nordic race" and beheading by guillotine. The judicial system was one of the main tools of extermination policy towards Poles led by Nazi Germany in the city and verdicts were motivated by statements that Poles were subhuman. By the end of World War II, nearly all of the city had been reduced to ruins. On 30 March 1945, the city was taken by the Red Army. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Allies agreed that the city would become part of Poland. No formal treaty has ever altered the status of the Free City of Danzig, and its incorporation into Poland has rested upon the general acquiescence of the international community. Subsequently, several groups proclaimed they represented the Free City of Danzig Government in Exile, a continuation of the state. The expulsion of the pre-war inhabitants started already before the decisions of the Potsdam Conference of August 1945. From June to October, an estimated number of 60,000 residents were expelled by Polish authorities, often units of the Polish Armed Forces, the Polish State Security and the Milicja Obywatelska encircled certain areas and forced the inhabitants to make room for newly arrived Polish settlers. About 20,000 Germans left on their own and by late 1945, between 10,000 and 15,000 pre-war inhabitants remained. By 1950, 13,424 citizens of the former Free City had been "verified" and granted Polish citizenship. By 1947, 126,472 Danzigers of German ethnicity were expelled to Germany from Gdańsk, and 101,873 Poles from Central Poland and 26,629 from Soviet-annexed Eastern Poland took their place (these figures refer to the city of Gdańsk itself, not to the whole area of pre-war Free City). Origin of the post-war population During the Polish post-war census of December 1950, data about the pre-war places of residence of the inhabitants as of August 1939 were collected. In the case of children born between September 1939 and December 1950, their origin was reported based on the pre-war places of residence of their mothers. Thanks to this data it is possible to reconstruct the pre-war geographical origin of the post-war population. The same territory which corresponded to the pre-war Free City of Danzig was inhabited in December 1950 by: At least 85% of the population as of December 1950 were post-war newcomers, but over 10% of inhabitants were still pre-war Danzigers (most of them members of pre-war Polish and Kashubian minorities in the Free City of Danzig). Another 25% came from neighbouring areas of pre-war Polish Pomerania. Almost 20% were Poles from areas of former Eastern Poland annexed by the USSR (many from Wilno Voivodeship). Several percent came from the city of Warsaw, which had been largely destroyed in 1944. == See also ==