DANZIG HISTORY
Danzig, today Gdansk, is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area. The city lies on the southern edge of Gdansk Bay (of the Baltic Sea), in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called Trójmiasto, with a population of over 800,000. Gdansk itself has a population of 455,830 (June 2010), making it the largest city in the Pomerania region of Northern Poland.
Gdansk is Poland's principal seaport as well as the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship (administrative area). The city is close to the former late medieval/modern boundary between West Slavic and Germanic lands and it has a complex political history with periods of Polish rule, periods of German rule, and extensive self-rule, with two terms as a free city. It has been part of Poland since 1945.
Gdansk is situated at the mouth of the Motława River, connected to the Leniwka, a branch in the delta of the nearby Vistula River, whose waterway system supplies 60% of the area of Poland and connects Gdansk to the national capital in Warsaw. This gives the city a unique advantage as the centre of Poland's sea trade. Together with the nearby port of Gdynia, Gdansk is also an important industrial centre. Historically an important seaport and shipbuilding centre, Gdansk was a member of the Hanseatic League.
The city was the birthplace of the Solidarity movement which, under the leadership of political activist Lech Wałęsa, played a major role in bringing an end to Communist rule across Central Europe.
Brief History
Throughout its long history, Gdansk has faced various periods of rule by different states:
- 997 – 1308: as part of the Kingdom of Poland;
- 1308 – 1454: as part of the territory of the Teutonic Order;
- 1454 – 1466: Thirteen Years' War;
- 1466 – 1569: as part of the Kingdom of Poland;
- 1569 – 1793: as part of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth;
- 1793 – 1805: as part of Prussia;
- 1807 – 1814: as a free city;
- 1815 – 1871: as part of Prussia;
- 1871 – 1920: as part of Imperial Germany;
- 1920 – 1939: as a free city;
- 1939 – 1945: as part of Nazi Germany;
- 1945 – 1989: as part of Polish People's Republic;
- 1989 – to the present: as part of Republic of Poland.
On 15 May 1457, Casimir IV of Poland granted Gdansk the Great Privilege, after he had been invited by the town's council and had already stayed in town for five weeks. With the Great Privilege, the town was granted autonomy within the Kingdom of Poland. Furthermore, the privilege united Old Town, Hakelwerk and Rechtstadt, and legalized the demolition of New Town, which had sided with the Teutonic Knights. Already in 1457, New Town was demolished completely.
Gaining free and privileged access for the first time to polish markets, the seaport prospered while simultaneously trading with the other hanseatic cities. After the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466 with the Teutonic Monastic State of Prussia, the warfare ended permanently. After the incorporation of Royal Prussia by the Kingdom of Poland in 1569, the city continued to enjoy a large degree of internal autonomy.
After the Siege of Danzig, in 1577, lasting six months, the city's army of 5,000 mercenaries was utterly defeated in a field battle on December 16. However, since Stephen's armies were unable to take the city by force, a compromise was reached: Stephen Báthory confirmed the city's special status and Danzig's Law privileges granted by earlier Polish kings.
The city suffered a slow economic decline due to the wars of the 18th century, when it was taken by the Russians after the Siege of Danzig in 1734.
Danzig was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1793. During the era of Napoleon Bonaparte the city became a free city in the period extending from 1807 to 1814.
From 1824 until 1878, East and West Prussia were combined as a single province within the Prussian Kingdom. As a part of Prussia Danzig was a member of the Zollverein and elected its representatives to the German National Assembly of 1848, but lay outside of the borders the German Confederation (1815–1866). In the second half of 19th century the growth of German population in the city was being slowly reversed, with more Poles settling in, mainly from Pomerania, and parts of local population discovering their Polish roots.
In 1871 the city was included in the newly created German Empire.
Free City
The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939. It consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig and surrounding areas.
The Free City was created on 15 November 1920 in accordance with the terms of Part III, Section XI of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, without a plebiscite. The Free City included the city of Danzig and over two hundred nearby towns, villages and settlements.
As the League of Nations decreed, the region was to remain separated from the nation of Germany, and from the newly resurrected nation of Poland. The Free City was not an independent State; it was under League of Nations protection and put into a binding customs union with Poland. Poland also had special utilization rights towards the city. The Free City was created in order to give Poland sufficient access to the sea.
In 1933, the City's government was taken over by the local Nazi Party and the democratic opposition was suppressed.
After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Free City was abolished and incorporated into the newly formed Reichsgau (an administrative subdivision) of Danzig-West Prussia. Widespread anti-Semitic and anti-Polish discrimination and organized murder followed.
Before the end of World War II, the Yalta Conference had agreed to place the city, under its original Polish name Gdansk, under de facto administration of Poland. This decision was confirmed at the Potsdam Conference.
A Polish administration was set up in the devastated Gdansk on 30 March 1945. As of 1948 more than two thirds of the 150,000 inhabitants came from Central Poland, about 15 to 18 percent from Polish-speaking areas east of the Curzon Line that were annexed by the Soviet Union after WWII.
Between 1952 and the late 1960s Polish artisans restored much of the old city's architecture, up to 90% destroyed in the war.
Gdansk was the scene of anti-government demonstrations which led to the downfall of Poland's communist leader Władysław Gomułka in December 1970, and ten years later was the birthplace of the Solidarity trade union movement, whose opposition to the government led to the end of communist party rule, in 1989, and the election as president of Poland of its leader Lech Wałęsa. It remains today a major port and industrial city.
Postage stamps and postal history of Free City of Danzig
Danzig, when was a Free City, had its own stamps.
The first stamps of Danzig were overprinted German stamps issued on 14 June 1920.
The first stamps of the Danzig Free State appeared in January 1921 and continued in use until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. At that time the Free City was annexed by the Third Reich.
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