Danzig

The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (today Gdansk) and surrounding areas.

The Free City was created on 15 November 1920 in accordance with the terms 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, while at the same time recognizing that its population was mainly German.

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 of Danzig-West Prussia. Widespread anti-Semitic and anti-Polish discrimination and organized murder followed.

After the city's conquest by the Soviet Army in the early months of 1945, large numbers of ethnic German citizens of the former Free City of Danzig were forced to leave (expelled). The city was subsequently put under Polish administration by the Allied Potsdam Agreement, and Polish settlers were brought in to replace the German population.