I cannot take credit for the following work, which was completed by a fellow researcher. However, I believe it is an important read. I have included visual material at my own perogative and removed all 359 citations for easier reading. The original piece can be viewed in full, with all footnotes intact, by clicking here or on the icon below:
From the Carpathian Mountains in Europe, the Vistula River heads north and winds through several cities, including Kraków, Warsaw, Toruń and Bydgoszcz; then, the Vistula approaches the Baltic Sea and, en route to open waters, descends towards one last, important stop: the eidolic port city of Gdańsk. Three generations ago, Gdańsk was known by its German name, which is Danzig. The city belonged to Germany and, in terms of ethnicity, its population was predominantly German. Under these circumstances, in 1920, Danzig and over two hundred neighboring villages were transformed into one tiny, semi-autonomous "city-state" called the Free City of Danzig. Poland obtained the right to develop, maintain and utilize the Free City’s transportation, communication, and port facilities.
The new arrangement was supposed to set up a rewarding business relationship between the Germans of Danzig and Poland. To the contrary, it created a situation where administrators from both regions struggled against each other for influence over the Free City’s affairs. Another problem was that neither Germany nor Poland approved of the Free City arrangement. Thus, as soon as the new plan was put into place, each state pursued policies towards the Free City which were in its own best interests instead of the best interests of the new arrangement's functionality. Together, these circumstances fostered the growth of tensions between the German and Polish nations, which set the pace for tariff wars, economic sanctions and an atmosphere of hostility that put the city’s commercial livelihood in grave danger. All the while, Germany’s government tried to convince the Poles to allow for a new plan in the Baltic region, to no avail. Poland’s leaders feared that a new plan would compromise their power. Consequently, the Free City arrangement remained intact until the German invasion of Poland in 1939, after which Germany took control of the Free City territory. The invasion triggered a larger conflict commonly held to be about curtailing Germany’s ambitions to conquer Poland and the rest of Europe. Accordingly, the controversy over the Free City came to be viewed as little more than a German pretext to seize Poland. In fact, Germany’s leader in 1939, Adolf Hitler, came to be seen as the creator of the controversy over the Free City.
Although Hitler played an important role in the conflict over the Free City, he was not the creator of the controversy over the city’s fate and future; a comprehensive analysis of the Free City’s history and a clear understanding of the long-running conflict over the Danzig region reveals that the situation was much more complex. To begin, five hundred years before Hitler, ethnic German and Polish leaders were already at odds over control of the region. But the argument over Danzig’s “rightful ownership” went back even further. For example, to stress Danzig’s connection to Germany, German intellectuals later argued that, as early as the 1st century, their Germanic ancestors had arrived in mainland Europe from the Scandinavian isles and made the Danzig region into a home. Giving credit to this theory, etymologists and historians have purported that the primary Germanic settlement “Gothiscandza”, allegedly established near the mouth of the Vistula around the 1st century, may have been the exact site which was recorded in Latin as "Gyddanyzc" and, later, referred to as Kdanzk, Gdanzc, Danceke, Gdansk, Danzc, Danczk, Danczik, Danczig and Danzig. In other words, “Gothiscandza” may have evolved into the very site known as Danzig. Still, even if the locations of Gothiscandza and Danzig coincide, it is possible that the Germanic peoples who found Gothiscandza were not among the Germanic peoples whose descendants ultimately settled in Germany. Furthermore, the geopolitical situation of the 1st century hardly indicated to whom the Danzig region “belonged” historically, as the face of Europe soon changed indefinitely.
From the Carpathian Mountains in Europe, the Vistula River heads north and winds through several cities, including Kraków, Warsaw, Toruń and Bydgoszcz; then, the Vistula approaches the Baltic Sea and, en route to open waters, descends towards one last, important stop: the eidolic port city of Gdańsk. Three generations ago, Gdańsk was known by its German name, which is Danzig. The city belonged to Germany and, in terms of ethnicity, its population was predominantly German. Under these circumstances, in 1920, Danzig and over two hundred neighboring villages were transformed into one tiny, semi-autonomous "city-state" called the Free City of Danzig. Poland obtained the right to develop, maintain and utilize the Free City’s transportation, communication, and port facilities.
The new arrangement was supposed to set up a rewarding business relationship between the Germans of Danzig and Poland. To the contrary, it created a situation where administrators from both regions struggled against each other for influence over the Free City’s affairs. Another problem was that neither Germany nor Poland approved of the Free City arrangement. Thus, as soon as the new plan was put into place, each state pursued policies towards the Free City which were in its own best interests instead of the best interests of the new arrangement's functionality. Together, these circumstances fostered the growth of tensions between the German and Polish nations, which set the pace for tariff wars, economic sanctions and an atmosphere of hostility that put the city’s commercial livelihood in grave danger. All the while, Germany’s government tried to convince the Poles to allow for a new plan in the Baltic region, to no avail. Poland’s leaders feared that a new plan would compromise their power. Consequently, the Free City arrangement remained intact until the German invasion of Poland in 1939, after which Germany took control of the Free City territory. The invasion triggered a larger conflict commonly held to be about curtailing Germany’s ambitions to conquer Poland and the rest of Europe. Accordingly, the controversy over the Free City came to be viewed as little more than a German pretext to seize Poland. In fact, Germany’s leader in 1939, Adolf Hitler, came to be seen as the creator of the controversy over the Free City.
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Common view of the war that began
in 1939 and changed the way the Danzig dispute is remembered |
