Free City of Danzig

The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state created by the Treaty of Versailles and placed under the protection of the League of Nations. It came into being on 15 November 1920 and consisted of the Baltic port of Danzig, today Gdańsk, together with nearly 200 surrounding towns and villages. Its population was overwhelmingly German-speaking, but Poland received special rights in the port, a customs union and control of the city's foreign policy and railways. The Free City issued its own currency and stamps and had a senate and constitution, yet it was never fully sovereign. The arrangement was intended to give Poland secure access to the sea without incorporating a German-majority city into the Polish state, and it remained a source of friction between Germany and Poland throughout the interwar years. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Free City was abolished and annexed to the German Reich. Its territory was restored to Poland in 1945, and the city, renamed Gdańsk, became the centre of the Polish Baltic coast.