The Free City of Danzig Explained

The Free City of Danzig was a short-lived country on the coast of the Baltic Sea. In this video I explain how it came to exist, and what happened during its brief independence.

[EdMcF]

I was on a train in West Germany in the mid-1980s. A Polish lady with her young daughter was talking to two elderly German women in the cabin in German. She said that they were visiting Germany, where her German husband lived. She said that she was from Danzig. I was immediately fascinated and thought of the Free City. I started to look for it on the map in my European train timetable book.I could not find it and after about half an hour of bafflement I realised I was looking for Gdansk, by then famous for Solidarity and Lech Wałesa.

[jastaz]

When is the next video! I'm semi-patiently waiting!!

[DanielinLaTuna]

I was going to mention the final irony in the history of Danzig, but EdMcF1 beat me to it - that the city, by then Polish once again, gave birth to the trade union “Solidarity”, which was in its own way essential in the liberation of the nations within the old Soviet Bloc.
There had been other attempts (Hungary, Czechoslovakia) by the satellite nations to break free from Russian hegemony, but those were brutally squashed. Poland, and Polish independence came at a time when the USSR was dealing with liberation movements both within and outside of its borders (the Baltic States, the Islamic “Stans”, and the Warsaw Pact nations of East Germany, and the others…

[stephenq]

i love the quality of these videos, keep it up

[havolei]

Thanks! Lots of things that I didn't know.

[michadomeracki]

I really like living in Gdańsk. It is a great city.

[fredflinstone]

This is the first time I hear that the poles were willing to negotiate but the germans were delaying and obfuscating. Is this true. I heard/ read different

[Dave]

My grandmother left Danzig 100 years ago for the USA at age 19. I recently found a document with the date and decided to research its history. I never knew what a role it played in the start of WWII. I also found her mother-in-law's American enemy alien identity document that she was required to carry and present on demand during WWII or face internment for the duration. They didn't fool around during the war, with good reason.