Danzig Passport History
Danzig Passport History
The website www.Danzig.org has everything that you need to know about the Free City of Danzig (Gdansk). Besides the excellent gallery of the three passport types in seven versions (direct link here…), you will find vast information, media, and much more about the city. Truly an excellent site. I did enjoy reading… Last but not least you will find displayed also an “Alien Passport” version which is most rare to find (and still missing in my collection).
According to the Art. 105 of the Treaty of Versailles, German nationals ordinarily resident in this territory ipso facto lost their German nationality in order to become nationals of the Freie Stadt Danzig. Freie Stadt Danzig ‘Free City Danzig’ gave its citizens the passes that documented that confirmed the nationality and entitled the owners to cross the international borders. Further, you can see a variety of three (3) different types of passports in seven (7) variations of the Freie Stadt Danzig – ‘Free City Danzig’. You will find a great variety of visas, border cancels, money transfers, even Freie Stadt Danzig and Polish ‘Revenue’ stamps used as taxation. Danzig Passport History
Gdańsk (German: Danzig) is one of the oldest cities in Poland. Founded by the Polish ruler Mieszko I in the 10th century, the city was for a long time part of Piast state either directly or as a fief. In 1308 the city became part of the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights until 1454. Thereafter it became part of Poland again, although with increasing autonomy. A vital naval city for the Polish grain trade it attracted people from all over the European continent. The city was taken over by Prussia during the Second Partition of Poland in 1793 and subsequently lost its importance as a trading port. Briefly becoming a free city during Napoleonic wars, it was again Prussian after Napoleon’s defeat, and later became part of the newly created German Empire.
After World War I the Free City of Danzig was created, a city-state under the supervision of the League of Nations. The German attack on the Polish military depot at Westerplatte marks the start of World War II and the city was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1939. Local Jews were systematically murdered in the Holocaust while Poles and Kashubians also faced persecution. After World War II the city became part of Poland and the city’s German inhabitants, that had constituted the vast majority of the city’s mixed population before the war, either fled or were expelled to Germany. During the post-1945 era, the city was rebuilt from war damage, and vast shipyards were constructed. The center of Solidarity strikes in the 1980s, after the abolishment of communism in 1989 its population faced poverty and large unemployment with most of the ship building industry closed down.
