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81-536: According to Plan West (March 1939), the Kutno Reserve Group, consisting of three infantry divisions, was to be concentrated in the area of Kutno ( 22nd Mountain Infantry Division ), Wloclawek ( 13th Infantry Division ), and Plock ( 19th Infantry Division ). As Colonel Jozef Jaklicz of Polish Army headquarters specified, the group was tasked with the following: In accordance with Mobilization Plan W,

162-399: A British historian, James Headlam-Morley , investigating where the borders between Germany and Poland should be, started to research Danzig's history. Upon discovering that Danzig had been a Free City in the past, Headlam-Morley came up with what he regarded as a brilliant compromise solution under which Danzig would become a Free City again that would belong to neither Germany nor Poland. As

243-562: A Polish fief. Danzig and other cities such as Elbing and Thorn financed most of the warfare and enjoyed a high level of 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 costly Siege of Danzig in 1577 in order to preserve special privileges, and subsequently insisted on negotiating by sending emissaries directly to

324-593: A city disputed between Poland and Lithuania, and a small Polish force, primarily elite units of Border Defence Corps , was detached to secure that region. The plan assumed that Polish forces would be able to hold for several months but would be pushed back by the German numerical and technical superiority, which was estimated to be two or three to one. Then, the Western Allies (France and the United Kingdom), obliged by

405-626: 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 city was occupied by the Soviets in 1945. The population and demographics of the Free City are a matter of some dispute over the period of its existence. The Free City's population rose from 357,000 (1919) to 408,000 in 1929; according to

486-403: A length of 290.5 km, of which the coastline accounted for 66.35 km. The Free City was to be represented abroad by Poland and was to be in a customs union with it. 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 November 9, 1920, a convention that provided for

567-663: A likely possibility. The police began making plans 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 the Free City was formally annexed by Nazi Germany in October 1939, the police force more or less continued to operate as

648-545: A possible deep, flanking, eastward push from Prussia and Slovakia , but that push was assigned high priority in the German plan ( Fall Weiss ). A controversy involved the decision whether Polish forces should defend the lengthy borders or should withdraw east and south and try to defend a shorter line, backed with rivers. Although the second plan was more militarily sound, political considerations outweighed them, as Polish politicians were concerned that Germany could be satisfied with occupation of some disputed territories (like

729-501: A result, the group was reduced from three to two infantry divisions In the evening of August 27, 1939, some regiments of the 5th Infantry Division were mobilized. By Sunday, September 3, the regiments arrived at the Kutno rail station, and on the next day they reached Wloclawek, where they were incorporated into Pomorze Army , as the so-called Detachment of Colonel Sadowski ( Oddzial Wydzielony podpulkownika Sadowskiego ). These regiments were

810-579: A total area of 1,966 square kilometers ( 759 sq mi ). The cities of Danzig (since 1818) and Zoppot (since 1920) formed independent cities (Stadtkreise), whereas all other towns and municipalities were part of one of the three rural districts (Landkreise), Danziger Höhe , Danziger Niederung  [ pl ] (both seated in Danzig city) and Großes Werder  [ de ] , seated in Tiegenhof. In 1928, its territory covered 1,952 km including 58 square kilometers of freshwater surface. The border had

891-497: 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 were the Kashubs, another West Slavic group who derived their language from Pomeranian and had their own independent identity. Additionally, as

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972-511: The 1935 elections . Political opposition to the Nazis was repressed 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

1053-720: 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 zloty . 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

1134-665: 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

1215-628: The Franco-Polish alliance and the Polish–British Common Defence Pact ), would launch an offensive from the west, which would draw enough German forces away from the east to allow Polish forces to launch a counteroffensive. The plan correctly assumed the size, location and most of the directions of attack by the enemy. When the Germans attacked, however, the second and further defensive lines and related items were not fully defined by

1296-563: The Free City of Danzig , the Polish Corridor and Silesia ) and then push for an early end of the war after it had occupied those territories. The western regions were also the most densely populated ones and had major industrial centres, which were crucial for mobilization and any continued military production of equipment and supply for the Polish Army. Even with the decision to protect

1377-516: 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

1458-434: The Polish Corridor between German Pomerania and Prussia. After German annexation of parts of Czechoslovakia and changes of borders, Polish planners revised the plan with the expectation that a main thrust would originate from Silesia through Piotrków and Łódź towards Warsaw and Kraków . The Polish planners correctly predicted the direction of most German thrusts, with one crucial exception: they assigned low priority to

1539-674: The Soviet invasion of Poland and lack of promised aid from the Western Allies , contributed to the Polish defeat by 6 October 1939. Free City of Danzig 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

1620-548: 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. Glockenfriedhof  [ de ] ) in the British zone of occupation. The presbyteries granted them usually to Northwestern German Lutheran congregations which had lost bells due to the war. The 36 Catholic parishes in the territory of the Free City in 1922 used to belong in equal shares to

1701-633: 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 common language, also attended by Ben Gurion. With a Nazi majority in the Volkstag and Senate, anti-Semitic persecution and discrimination occurred unsanctioned by

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1782-498: The 13th and 19th Divisions were marked with red (alarm mobilization), and 22nd Division was planned to join these units in first phase of general mobilization. In the summer 1939, Polish Army headquarters made some changes to Plan West . 13th and 19th Divisions were transferred to Prusy Army, and 22nd Division to Lodz Army . After these changes, Kutno Reserve Group of Commander-in-Chief consisted of 5th Infantry Division (from Army Pomorze) and 24th Infantry Division , from Army Lodz. As

1863-580: The British were opposed to Danzig becoming part of Poland and the French and the Americans to Danzig remaining part of Germany, Headlam-Morley's compromise of the Free City of Danzig was embraced. The rural areas around Danzig were overwhelmingly Polish and the representatives of the Polish farmers around Danzig complained about being included in the Free City of Danzig, stating they wanted to join Poland. For their part,

1944-543: The Catholic Zentrumspartei instead of Polish parties), Stępniak estimates the number of Poles in the city to be 25–30% of Catholics living within it or about 30–36 thousand people. Including around 4,000 Polish nationals who were registered in the city, Stępniak estimated the Polish population as 9.4–11% of population. In contrast, Stefan Samerski estimates about 10 percent of the 130,000 Catholics were Polish. Andrzej Drzycimski estimates that Polish population at

2025-523: The Communist Party of East Prussia . Several liberal parties and Free Voter's 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

2106-419: The Danzig population was Polish. Kijański pointed out that the census was conducted by the police, which was "a deviation from the usual and only sensible and proven way of conducting this type of census". The police officers in charge of conducting the census were mostly German citizens who were granted Danzig citizenship for the duration of their service, and there were several incidents in which they intimidated

2187-621: The Free City of Danzig (like the Territory of the Saar Basin ) remained directly under the authority of the League of Nations. Representatives of various countries took on the role of High Commissioner: The League of Nations refused to let the city-state use the term of Hanseatic City as part of its official name; this referred to Danzig's long-lasting membership in the Hanseatic League : With

2268-465: 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

2349-411: 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. The Treaty of Versailles required that the newly formed state have its own citizenship, based on residency. German inhabitants lost their German citizenship with the creation of the Free City, but were given the right to re-obtain it within

2430-574: 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,

2511-838: 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 opposition also protested to the League of Nations, as did the Jewish Community of Danzig. 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 were handled by Poland . In 1927,

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2592-588: The Nazi Party was relatively weak in the Free City of Danzig, and remained unstable because of "furious factional struggles" which plagued the Nazi administration throughout its rule. The party membership was generally low, and the 1935 election in Danzig "amounted to an electoral defeat for the Nazis". The democratic opposition remained strong and was able to temporarily block the Nazi Gleichschaltung policies between 1935 and 1937. German Catholics were supportive of

2673-691: 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 12 precincts and 7 registration points. In 1926 the number of precincts was reduced to 7. 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 2 months and 8 days respectively. By 1939, Polish-German relations had worsened and war seemed

2754-554: The Polish claim to Danzig (Gdańsk), and it was only objections from the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George that prevented Danzig from going to Poland. Despite creating the Free City, the British did not really believe in the viability of the Free City of Danzig with Lloyd George writing 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

2835-561: 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,

2916-649: 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 barges to be loaded onto ships in Danzig, where it was shipped on to western Europe. As many of the merchants shipping the grain from Danzig were Dutch, who built Dutch-style houses for themselves, leading to other Danzigers imitating them,

2997-575: The Polish minority and most Danzig Poles voted for the Catholic Centre Party. Social Democrats were also willing to cooperate with Catholics and Poles, and the Catholic Church in Danzig was pro-Polish and opposed National Socialism. Rauschning was removed from his position by Forster and replaced by Arthur Greiser in November 1934. He later appealed to the public not to vote for the Nazis in

3078-517: The Presence of a Polish diplomatic representative in Danzig was signed between the Polish government and the Danzig authorities. In article 6, the Polish government undertook not to conclude any international agreements regarding Danzig without previous consultation with the Free City's government. A separate Polish post office was established, besides the existing municipal one. Unlike Mandatory territories, which were entrusted to member countries,

3159-549: 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

3240-501: 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

3321-507: 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 favorable 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

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3402-461: The borders, the fact that Poland was virtually encircled from three sides by the Germans caused the decision that some areas were almost impossible to defend and so had to be abandoned early on. That was the case for the northwestern Pomorze Voivodeship and Poznań Voivodeship . A separate force, the Land Coastal Defence , was to protect key parts of the coast as long as possible, and most of

3483-528: 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

3564-401: The city of Gdynia , then a midsized fishing town. This completely new port north of Danzig was established on territory awarded in 1919, the so-called 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. Many Jews fled from German persecution. After

3645-698: The city was thus given a distinctively Dutch appearance. Danzig become known as "the Amsterdam of the East", a wealthy seaport and trading crossroads that linked together the economics of western and eastern Europe, and whose location at 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 in the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, Prussia

3726-778: 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,

3807-529: The consistory had relocated to Lübeck and opened a refugee centre for Danzigers (Hilfsstelle beim evangelischen Konsistorium Danzig) led by Upper Consistorial Councillor Gerhard M. Gülzow  [ de ] . 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

3888-555: 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 became well known 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

3969-582: The denaturalisation of O'Rourke, who subsequently became a Polish citizen. O'Rourke was succeeded by Bishop Carl Maria Splett , a native from 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

4050-555: 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 as a result of the Potsdam Agreement , while members of the pre-war Polish ethnic minority started returning and new Polish settlers began to come. Gdańsk suffered severe underpopulation from these events and did not recover until

4131-401: 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 Catholic priest Franciszek Rogaczewski estimated that Poles made up about 20% of the population of the Free City of Danzig in 1936. The accuracy of demographic estimates

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4212-874: The first two years of the state's existence. Anyone desiring German citizenship had to leave their property and make their residence outside the Free State of Danzig area in the remaining parts of Germany. 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. The mostly Lutheran and partially Reformed congregations situated in

4293-414: The grounds that the Germans had such an utter contempt for the Poles together with the rest of the Slavic peoples that such losses were bound to deeply wound their feelings 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 at all. During the Paris Peace Conference, a commission of inquiry chaired by

4374-530: 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 of Danzig (1920–39) 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

4455-410: The late 1950s. Danzig had an early history of independence. It was a leading player in the Prussian Confederation 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 with the role of head of state of western parts of Prussia ( Royal Prussia ). In contrast, Ducal Prussia remained

4536-518: The local non-German population. The census also often relied on information provided by landlords or homeowners instead of asking each citizen directly; as a result, Kijański stated that "the results of the census show significant deviations from the actual proportions in terms of nationality data". 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

4617-554: The new Polish government and military re-evaluated the situation and decided that the current Polish plan for a Polish–German war, dating from the mid-1920s (Plan "S"), was inadequate and needed to be revised. However up to 1938, the priority remained in the east, not the west, and most Polish fortifications were being erected on the Polish–Soviet border. The first version predicted that Germans would attack from Pomerania towards Warsaw , with supporting thrusts from Silesia and Prussia , aiming at establishing an early link through

4698-461: The number of Catholic parishes increased and most formerly Protestant churches were taken over for Catholic services. Since 1883 most of the Jewish congregations in the later territory of 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

4779-418: The official census, 95% were Germans , with the rest mainly either Kashubians or Poles . According to E. Cieślak, the population registers of the Free City show that in 1929 the Polish population numbered 35,000, or 10.7% of the population. Some estimates put the proportion of Danzig Poles between at between 10 and 13%. Henryk Stępniak estimates the 1929 Polish population as around 22,000, or around 6% of

4860-408: The only units of the projected Kutno Operational Group, which reached the concentration area. Due to worsening situation of the Polish Army, which was forced into a general retreat, on September 3 Polish Commander in Chief, Marshal Edward Smigly-Rydz abandoned the idea of creation of the Kutno Group. On that day, 24th Infantry Division was transferred to Karpaty Army , and on September 4, the 5th I.D.

4941-470: The plan, and none of its aspects had been subject to a military exercise. There were also other unfinished parts, particularly those dealing with communications and supplies. When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Polish forces were dealt a significant defeat at the Battle of the Border , just as critics of the plan had predicted. Further factors, such as underestimating German mobility and blitzkrieg strategy and overestimating Polish mobility,

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5022-447: The population, increasing to around 13% in the 1930s. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Polish population increased. According to some sources, in 1938, the Free City's population of 410,000 was 98% German, 1% Polish and 1% other. Other estimates suggest the proportion of Poles in the population of the Free City was around 20% in 1939 or around 25% in 1936. Based on the estimated voting patterns (according to Stępniak many Poles voted for

5103-430: The post-war German Republic and the newly independent Polish Republic . In addition, Poland was given certain rights pertaining to port facilities in the city. In the 1920 Constituent Assembly election , the Polish Party received over 6% of the vote, but its percentage of votes later declined to about 3%. A large number of Danzig Poles voted for the Catholic Centre Party instead. In 1921, Poland began to develop

5184-518: 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 not always regarded themselves as Germans who had been unjustly taken out of Germany. The loss of Danzig did although deeply hurt German national pride and in

5265-416: The result of Kulturkampf laws, German Catholics, who made up about 40% of the city's population, supported the Polish national movement and stood up for Polish interests. 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

5346-414: The return of the German officers. 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

5427-425: 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

5508-409: 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 under

5589-570: The surface Polish Navy was to be evacuated to the United Kingdom as specified in the Peking Plan ( submarines were to engage the enemy in the Baltic Sea , according to the Worek Plan ). The main Polish defence line was to be formed on the regions of the Augustów Primeval Forest – Biebrza River – Narew River – Vistula River (and the towns of Modlin , Toruń , Bydgoszcz ) – Inowrocław Lakes – Warta River – Widawka River – town of Częstochowa – Silesian fortifications – town of Bielsko-Biała – town of Żywiec – village of Chabówka – and

5670-402: The surrounding areas. The polity was created on 15 November 1920 in accordance with the terms of Article 100 (Section XI of Part III) of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles after the end of World War I . Although predominantly German-populated , the territory was bound by the imposed union with Poland covering foreign policy, defence, customs , railways and post, but remained distinct from both

5751-401: 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

5832-551: The territory. The first apostolic administrator was Edward O'Rourke (born in Minsk and of Irish ancestry) who became Bishop of Danzig on the occasion of the elevation of the administration to an exempt diocese in 1925. He was naturalised as Danziger on the same occasion. In 1938 he resigned after quarrels with the Nazi-dominated Senate of Danzig on appointments of parish priests of Polish ethnicity. The senate also instigated

5913-731: The town of Nowy Sącz ). The second defensive line was based on the Augustów Forest - Biebrza River – Narew River – Bug River – Vistula River – and Dunajec River. Finally, the third defensive line involved retreating southeast towards the Romanian border and holding as long as possible in the region of the Romanian Bridgehead . The plan assumed the Soviet Union would be neutral, as a German–Soviet alliance seemed unlikely. The plan, however, allowed for Lithuania to try to take Wilno ,

5994-667: Was conquered by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806, and 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 re-incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia in 1814, after Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Leipzig ( Battle of Nations ) by 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

6075-480: Was even briefly dissolved. Its influence grew with the onset of difficult economic times and the increasing popularity of the Nazi Party in Germany proper. Albert Forster became the Gauleiter in October 1930. The Nazis won 50 percent of votes in the Volkstag elections of 28 May 1933, and took control of the Senate in June 1933, with Hermann Rauschning becoming President of the Senate of Danzig. In contrast to Germany,

6156-611: 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 largely the work of British diplomacy as both the French Premier Georges Clemenceau and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson supported

6237-592: 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. In 1929, Tadeusz Kijański, a Polish citizen of Danzig, questioned the results of the official 1923 census, according to which only 3% to 1% of

6318-641: 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

6399-542: Was restricted in its responsibility to those congregations within the Free City's territory. First General Superintendent Paul Kalweit  [ de ] (1920–1933) and then Bishop Johannes Beermann  [ de ] (1933–1945) presided over the consistory. Unlike the Second Polish Republic , which opposed the cooperation of the United Evangelical Church in Poland with EKapU, Volkstag and

6480-524: 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 organize its own emigration in early 1939. 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

6561-474: Was transferred to Modlin Army . Plan West Plan West ( Polish : Plan Zachód ) was a military plan of the Polish Army of the Second Polish Republic , for defence against invasion from Nazi Germany . It was designed in the late 1930s. While Józef Piłsudski was the dictator of Poland, planning concentrated on a possible attack on Poland from the east. It was only after Piłsudski's death in 1935 that

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