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163-625: Yitzhak (Ike) Aronowicz was born in Łódź . He grew up in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland ) and immigrated to Mandate Palestine at the age of 10. At the age of 23, he became the captain of the SS Exodus . He was married to Irene, a non-Jewish American woman from Berkeley, California . Aronowicz died in Israel on December 23, 2009, aged 86. He was survived by two daughters, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Aronowicz

326-650: A fascist party with similar policies and objectives came into power in Italy, the National Fascist Party , under the leadership of the charismatic Benito Mussolini . The Fascists, like the Nazis, promoted a national rebirth of their country, as they opposed communism and liberalism; appealed to the working-class; opposed the Treaty of Versailles ; and advocated the territorial expansion of their country. Hitler

489-623: A totalitarian regime known as the Third Reich and became dictator with absolute power . Following the military defeat of Germany in World War II , the party was declared illegal. The Allies attempted to purge German society of Nazi elements in a process known as denazification . Several top leaders were tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trials , and executed. The use of symbols associated with

652-486: A "people's community" ( Volksgemeinschaft ). The party aimed to unite "racially desirable" Germans as national comrades while excluding those deemed to be either political dissidents, physically or intellectually inferior, or of a foreign race ( Fremdvölkische ). The Nazis sought to strengthen the Germanic people, the " Aryan master race ", through racial purity and eugenics , broad social welfare programs, and

815-399: A British historian, James Headlam-Morley , investigating where the borders between Germany and Poland should be, started to research Danzig's history. Upon discovering that Danzig had been a Free City in the past, Headlam-Morley came up with what he regarded as a brilliant compromise solution under which Danzig would become a Free City again that would belong to neither Germany nor Poland. As

978-472: A Catholic monarch; and Westphalia , along with working-class "Red Berlin", were always the Nazis' weakest areas electorally, even during the Third Reich itself. The areas of strongest Nazi support were in rural Protestant areas such as Schleswig-Holstein , Mecklenburg , Pomerania and East Prussia . Depressed working-class areas such as Thuringia also produced a strong Nazi vote, while the workers of

1141-634: A Jewish-dominated movement and denounced capitalists for war profiteering in World War I. Drexler saw the political violence and instability in Germany as the result of the Weimar Republic being out-of-touch with the masses, especially the lower classes. Drexler emphasised the need for a synthesis of völkisch nationalism with a form of economic socialism , in order to create a popular nationalist-oriented workers' movement that could challenge

1304-562: A Polish fief. Danzig and other cities such as Elbing and Thorn financed most of the warfare and enjoyed a high level of city autonomy. In 1569, when Royal Prussia's estates agreed to incorporate the region into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , the city insisted on preserving its special status. It defended itself through the costly Siege of Danzig in 1577 in order to preserve special privileges, and subsequently insisted on negotiating by sending emissaries directly to

1467-590: A bystander lay dead. Hitler, Ludendorff and a number of others were arrested and were tried for treason in March 1924. Hitler and his associates were given very lenient prison sentences. While Hitler was in prison, he wrote his semi-autobiographical political manifesto Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). The Nazi Party was banned on 9 November 1923; however, with the support of the nationalist Völkisch-Social Bloc ( Völkisch-Sozialer Block ), it continued to operate under

1630-489: A collective subordination of individual rights, which could be sacrificed for the good of the state on behalf of the people. To protect the supposed purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to disenfranchise, segregate, and eventually exterminate Jews , Romani , Slavs , the physically and mentally disabled , homosexuals , Jehovah's Witnesses , and political opponents. The persecution reached its climax when

1793-527: A development which was formally documented by the merger of the offices of Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police on 17 June 1936, as the position was held by Heinrich Himmler who derived his authority directly from Hitler. The Sicherheitsdienst (SD, formally the "Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS") that had been created in 1931 as an intraparty intelligence became

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1956-593: A driver for the Israeli Embassy. After completing his studies, he returned to Israel and established his own shipping company, running lines to China , Singapore , and Iran . In a statement after his death Shimon Peres , the Israeli president, said Ahronovitch had "made a unique contribution to the state which will never be forgotten". Free City of Danzig The Free City of Danzig ( German : Freie Stadt Danzig ; Polish : Wolne Miasto Gdańsk )

2119-641: A law enforcement agency. The Stutthof concentration camp , 35 km east of the city, was run by the President of the police as an internment camp from 1939 until November 1941. Administration was finally dissolved when the city was occupied by the Soviets in 1945. The population and demographics of the Free City are a matter of some dispute over the period of its existence. The Free City's population rose from 357,000 (1919) to 408,000 in 1929; according to

2282-610: A league called the Freier Arbeiterausschuss für einen guten Frieden (Free Workers' Committee for a good Peace) was created in Bremen , Germany. On 7 March 1918, Anton Drexler , an avid German nationalist, formed a branch of this league in Munich . Drexler was a local locksmith who had been a member of the militarist Fatherland Party during World War I and was bitterly opposed to the armistice of November 1918 and

2445-403: A length of 290.5 km, of which the coastline accounted for 66.35 km. The Free City was to be represented abroad by Poland and was to be in a customs union with it. The German railway line that connected the Free City with newly created Poland was to be administered by Poland, as were all rail lines in the territory of the Free City. On November 9, 1920, a convention that provided for

2608-686: A likely possibility. The police began making plans to seize Polish installations within the city, in the event of conflict. Ultimately the Danzig police participated in the September Campaign , fighting alongside the local SS and the German Army at the city's Polish post office and at Westerplatte . Even though the Free City was formally annexed by Nazi Germany in October 1939, the police force more or less continued to operate as

2771-483: A ministerial-level post at any level in Germany. In 1931 the Nazi Party altered its strategy to engage in perpetual campaigning across the country, even outside of election time. During 1931 and into 1932, Germany's political crisis deepened. Hitler ran for president against the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg in March 1932, polling 30% in the first round and 37% in the second against Hindenburg's 49% and 53%. By now

2934-555: A month later. In January 1923, France occupied the Ruhr industrial region as a result of Germany's failure to meet its reparations payments. This led to economic chaos, the resignation of Wilhelm Cuno 's government and an attempt by the German Communist Party (KPD) to stage a revolution. The reaction to these events was an upsurge of nationalist sentiment. Nazi Party membership grew sharply to about 20,000, compared to

3097-517: A new South German nation with Austria . In vehemently attacking the man's arguments, Hitler made an impression on the other party members with his oratorical skills; according to Hitler, the "professor" left the hall acknowledging unequivocal defeat. Drexler encouraged him to join the DAP. On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party and within a week was accepted as party member 555 (the party began counting membership at 500 to give

3260-523: A part of or aiding so-called " international Jewry ". The DAP was also deeply opposed to the Treaty of Versailles . The DAP did not attempt to make itself public and meetings were kept in relative secrecy, with public speakers discussing what they thought of Germany's present state of affairs , or writing to like-minded societies in Northern Germany . The DAP was a comparatively small group with fewer than 60 members. Nevertheless, it attracted

3423-419: A party member, abbreviates the party's name ( Nationalsozialist [natsi̯oˈnaːlzotsi̯aˌlɪst] ), and was coined in analogy with Sozi (pronounced [ˈzoːtsiː] ), an abbreviation of Sozialdemokrat (member of the rival Social Democratic Party of Germany ). Members of the party referred to themselves as Nationalsozialisten (National Socialists), but some did occasionally embrace

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3586-510: A protest, but had now drawn back from the prospect of actually putting him into power. The Nazis interpreted the result as a warning that they must seize power before their moment passed. Had the other parties united, this could have been prevented, but their shortsightedness made a united front impossible. Papen, his successor Kurt von Schleicher and the nationalist press magnate Alfred Hugenberg spent December and January in political intrigues that eventually persuaded President Hindenburg that it

3749-562: A shortened version of Ignatius , which was a common name in the Nazis' home region of Bavaria . Opponents seized on this, and the long-existing Sozi , to attach a dismissive nickname to the National Socialists. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler assumed power in the German government, the usage of "Nazi" diminished in Germany, although Austrian anti-Nazis continued to use the term. The use of " Nazi Germany " and "Nazi regime"

3912-615: A society divided along class and party lines. This ideology was explicitly antisemitic. As early as 1920, the party was raising money by selling a tobacco called Anti-Semit . From the outset, the DAP was opposed to non-nationalist political movements, especially on the left, including the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Members of the DAP saw themselves as fighting against " Bolshevism " and anyone considered

4075-584: A total area of 1,966 square kilometers ( 759 sq mi ). The cities of Danzig (since 1818) and Zoppot (since 1920) formed independent cities (Stadtkreise), whereas all other towns and municipalities were part of one of the three rural districts (Landkreise), Danziger Höhe , Danziger Niederung  [ pl ] (both seated in Danzig city) and Großes Werder  [ de ] , seated in Tiegenhof. In 1928, its territory covered 1,952 km including 58 square kilometers of freshwater surface. The border had

4238-424: A traitor to the party. In the following days, Hitler spoke to several packed houses and defended himself and Esser to thunderous applause. Hitler's strategy proved successful; at a special party congress on 29 July 1921, he replaced Drexler as party chairman by a vote of 533   to   1. The committee was dissolved, and Hitler was granted nearly absolute powers in the party as its sole leader. He would hold

4401-685: A way out of this impasse. The electoral result was the same, with the Nazis and the Communists winning 50% of the vote between them and more than half the seats, rendering this Reichstag no more workable than its predecessor. However, support for the Nazis had fallen to 33.1%, suggesting that the Nazi surge had passed its peak—possibly because the worst of the Depression had passed, possibly because some middle-class voters had supported Hitler in July as

4564-585: A week. Unlike many other members of the organisation, this continued employment provided him with enough money to dedicate himself more fully to the DAP. Hitler's first DAP speech was held in the Hofbräukeller on 16 October 1919. He was the second speaker of the evening, and spoke to 111 people. Hitler later declared that this was when he realised he could really "make a good speech". At first, Hitler spoke only to relatively small groups, but his considerable oratory and propaganda skills were appreciated by

4727-565: Is a brilliant speaker, we can hold out the prospect of an extremely exciting evening". Over the following months, the party continued to attract new members, while remaining too small to have any real significance in German politics. By the end of the year, party membership was recorded at 2,000, many of whom Hitler and Röhm had brought into the party personally, or for whom Hitler's oratory had been their reason for joining. Hitler's talent as an orator and his ability to draw new members, combined with his characteristic ruthlessness, soon made him

4890-502: Is complicated by the discrepancy between the ethnic and linguistic identities of the Danzig population - while 95% of the inhabitants of the Free City of Danzig were German-speaking, many Poles were bilingual and also spoke German, and were included in such estimates. Another significant minority were the Kashubs, another West Slavic group who derived their language from Pomeranian and had their own independent identity. Additionally, as

5053-607: The Reichswehr remained impartial. Nazi power over Germany remained virtual, not absolute. The Nazis embarked on a campaign of Gleichschaltung (coordination) to exert their control over all aspects of German government and society. During June and July 1933, all competing parties were either outlawed or dissolved themselves and subsequently the Law Against the Formation of Parties of 14 July 1933 legally established

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5216-470: The 1935 elections . Political opposition to the Nazis was repressed with several politicians being imprisoned and murdered. The economic policy of Danzig's Nazi-led government, which increased the public expenditures for employment-creation programs and the retrenchment of financial aid from Germany led to a devaluation of more than 40% of the Danziger Gulden in 1935. The Gold reserves of

5379-688: The Bank of Danzig declined from 30 million Gulden in 1933 to 13 million in 1935 and the foreign asset reserve from 10 million to 250,000 Gulden. In 1935, Poland protested when Danzig's Senate reduced the value of the Gulden so that it would be the same as the Polish zloty . As in Germany, the Nazis introduced laws mirroring the Enabling Act and Nuremberg laws (November 1938); existing parties and unions were gradually banned. The presence of

5542-635: The Bolsheviks , resonated with wide sections of the electorate. At the September 1930 Reichstag elections , the Nazis won 18% of the votes and became the second-largest party in the Reichstag after the Social Democrats. Hitler proved to be a highly effective campaigner, pioneering the use of radio and aircraft for this purpose. His dismissal of Strasser and his appointment of Goebbels as

5705-691: The Diocese of Culm , which was mostly Polish, and the Diocese of Ermland , which was mostly German. While the Second Polish Republic wanted all the parishes within the Free City to form part of Polish Culm, Volkstag and Senate wanted them all to become subject to German Ermland. In 1922 the Holy See suspended the jurisdictions of both dioceses over their parishes in the Free State and established an exempt apostolic administration for

5868-621: The Ruhr and Hamburg largely remained loyal to the Social Democrats , the Communist Party of Germany or the Catholic Centre Party . Nuremberg remained a Nazi Party stronghold, and the first Nuremberg Rally was held there in 1927. These rallies soon became massive displays of Nazi paramilitary power and attracted many recruits. The Nazis' strongest appeal was to the lower middle-classes—farmers, public servants, teachers and small businessmen—who had suffered most from

6031-558: The Wehrmacht had requisitioned as non-ferrous metal for war purposes since 1940, but which had survived, not yet melted down, in storage (e.g. Glockenfriedhof  [ de ] ) in the British zone of occupation. The presbyteries granted them usually to Northwestern German Lutheran congregations which had lost bells due to the war. The 36 Catholic parishes in the territory of the Free City in 1922 used to belong in equal shares to

6194-661: The World Union of Jewish Youth on 2 September 1924 in the Schützenhaus venue. On 21 March 1926 the Zionistische Organisation für Danzig convened delegates of Hechalutz from all over for the first conference in Danzig using Hebrew as common language, also attended by Ben Gurion. With a Nazi majority in the Volkstag and Senate, anti-Semitic persecution and discrimination occurred unsanctioned by

6357-573: The de facto intelligence agency of Nazi Germany. It was put under the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939, which then coordinated SD, Gestapo and criminal police , therefore functioning as a hybrid organisation of state and party structures. Officially, Nazi Germany lasted only 12 years. The Instrument of Surrender was signed by representatives of the German High Command at Berlin , on 8 May 1945, when

6520-671: The "Night of the Long Knives"), Hitler disempowered the SA's leadership—most of whom belonged to the Strasserist (national revolutionary) faction within the NSDAP—and ordered them killed. He accused them of having conspired to stage a coup d'état , but it is believed that this was only a pretense to justify the suppression of any intraparty opposition. The purge was executed by the SS, assisted by

6683-646: The British were opposed to Danzig becoming part of Poland and the French and the Americans to Danzig remaining part of Germany, Headlam-Morley's compromise of the Free City of Danzig was embraced. The rural areas around Danzig were overwhelmingly Polish and the representatives of the Polish farmers around Danzig complained about being included in the Free City of Danzig, stating they wanted to join Poland. For their part,

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6846-553: The Catholic Zentrumspartei instead of Polish parties), Stępniak estimates the number of Poles in the city to be 25–30% of Catholics living within it or about 30–36 thousand people. Including around 4,000 Polish nationals who were registered in the city, Stępniak estimated the Polish population as 9.4–11% of population. In contrast, Stefan Samerski estimates about 10 percent of the 130,000 Catholics were Polish. Andrzej Drzycimski estimates that Polish population at

7009-536: The Communist Party of East Prussia . Several liberal parties and Free Voter's Associations existed and ran in the elections with varying success. A Polish Party represented the Polish minority and received between 3% ( 1933 ) and 6% ( 1920 ) of the vote (in total, 4,358 votes in 1933 and 9,321 votes in 1920). Initially, the Nazi Party had only a small amount of success (0.8% of the vote in 1927 ) and

7172-697: The Control Council Law no. 2 Providing for the Termination and Liquidation of the Nazi Organization specified the abolition of 52 other Nazi affiliated and supervised organisations and outlawed their activities. The denazification was carried out in Germany and continued until the onset of the Cold War. Between 1939 and 1945, the Nazi Party led regime, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries,

7335-751: The Council of the League of Nations agreed to the establishment of a Polish military guard of 88 men on the Westerplatte peninsula to protect the war material depot. Nazi Party Final solution Parties The Nazi Party , officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( German : Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei   or NSDAP ), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported

7498-419: The Danzig population was Polish. Kijański pointed out that the census was conducted by the police, which was "a deviation from the usual and only sensible and proven way of conducting this type of census". The police officers in charge of conducting the census were mostly German citizens who were granted Danzig citizenship for the duration of their service, and there were several incidents in which they intimidated

7661-644: The Free City of Danzig (like the Territory of the Saar Basin ) remained directly under the authority of the League of Nations. Representatives of various countries took on the role of High Commissioner: The League of Nations refused to let the city-state use the term of Hanseatic City as part of its official name; this referred to Danzig's long-lasting membership in the Hanseatic League : With

7824-469: The Free City of Danzig sent a military advisory mission to Bolivia . The Bolivian government of Hernando Siles Reyes wanted to continue the pre- World War I German military mission but the Treaty of Versailles prohibited that. The German officers, including Ernst Röhm , were transferred to the Danzig police force and then sent to Bolivia. In 1929, after problems with the mission, the British embassy handled

7987-411: The Free City's permanent population, but noted that the actual number of Poles may have been higher, as Poles made up 60% of all foreigners in Danzig at the time. The Treaty of Versailles required that the newly formed state have its own citizenship, based on residency. German inhabitants lost their German citizenship with the creation of the Free City, but were given the right to re-obtain it within

8150-475: The Fulda conference, rejected the request. Any arguments that the Free City of Danzig had been annexed to Nazi Germany did not impress Bertram since Danzig's annexation lacked international recognition. Until the reorganization of the Catholic dioceses in Danzig and the formerly eastern territories of Germany the diocesan territory remained unaltered and the see exempt. However, with the replacement of Danzig's population between 1945 and 1948 by mostly Catholic Poles,

8313-455: The Gestapo and Reichswehr units. Aside from Strasserist Nazis, they also murdered anti-Nazi conservative figures like former chancellor von Schleicher. After this, the SA continued to exist but lost much of its importance, while the role of the SS grew significantly. Formerly only a sub-organisation of the SA, it was made into a separate organisation of the NSDAP in July 1934. Upon the death of President Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, Hitler merged

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8476-512: The League of Nations however still guaranteed a minimum of legal certainty. In 1935, the opposition parties, except for the Polish Party, filed a lawsuit to the Danzig High Court in protest against the manipulation of the Volkstag elections. The opposition also protested to the League of Nations, as did the Jewish Community of Danzig. The number of members of the Nazi Party in Danzig increased from 21,861 in June 1934 to 48,345 in September 1938. Foreign relations were handled by Poland . In 1927,

8639-424: The Nazi Party might never have come to power had it not been for the Great Depression and its effects on Germany. By 1930, the German economy was beset with mass unemployment and widespread business failures. The Social Democrats and Communists were bitterly divided and unable to formulate an effective solution: this gave the Nazis their opportunity and Hitler's message, blaming the crisis on the Jewish financiers and

8802-478: The Nazi Party was relatively weak in the Free City of Danzig, and remained unstable because of "furious factional struggles" which plagued the Nazi administration throughout its rule. The party membership was generally low, and the 1935 election in Danzig "amounted to an electoral defeat for the Nazis". The democratic opposition remained strong and was able to temporarily block the Nazi Gleichschaltung policies between 1935 and 1937. German Catholics were supportive of

8965-404: The Nazi Party's monopoly. On 1 December 1933, the Law to Secure the Unity of Party and State entered into force, which was the base for a progressive intertwining of party structures and state apparatus. By this law, the SA—actually a party division—was given quasi-governmental authority and their Stabschef became a cabinet minister without portfolio . By virtue of the 30 January 1934 Law on

9128-416: The Nazi regime. Hitler later claimed to be the seventh party member. He was, in fact, the seventh executive member of the party's central committee and he would later wear the Golden Party Badge number one. Anton Drexler drafted a letter to Hitler in 1940—which was never sent—that contradicts Hitler's later claim: No one knows better than you yourself, my Führer, that you were never the seventh member of

9291-593: The Police (i. e. Chief ) on 1 April 1921. He served in this capacity until the German annexation of the city. The police initially operated from 12 precincts and 7 registration points. In 1926 the number of precincts was reduced to 7. After the Nazi takeover of the Senate, the police were increasingly used to suppress free speech and political dissent. In 1933, Froböss ordered the left-wing newspapers Danziger Volksstimme and Danziger Landeszeitung to suspend publications for 2 months and 8 days respectively. By 1939, Polish-German relations had worsened and war seemed

9454-470: The Polish claim to Danzig (Gdańsk), and it was only objections from the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George that prevented Danzig from going to Poland. Despite creating the Free City, the British did not really believe in the viability of the Free City of Danzig with Lloyd George writing at the time: "France would tomorrow fight for Alsace if her right to it were contested. But would we make war for Danzig?" The Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote in

9617-439: The Polish congregations of the United Evangelical Church in Poland in the homonymous Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and the German congregations in the West Prussia governorate . Danzig's consistory functioned as an executive body for that region. With the flight and expulsion of most ethnically German Protestant parishioners from the area of the Free City of Danzig between 1945 and 1948, the congregations vanished. In March 1945,

9780-501: The Polish king. Danzig's location as a deep-water port where the Vistula river met the Baltic Sea had made it into one of the wealthiest cities in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries as grain from Poland and Ukraine was shipped down the Vistula on barges to be loaded onto ships in Danzig, where it was shipped on to western Europe. As many of the merchants shipping the grain from Danzig were Dutch, who built Dutch-style houses for themselves, leading to other Danzigers imitating them,

9943-402: The Polish minority and most Danzig Poles voted for the Catholic Centre Party. Social Democrats were also willing to cooperate with Catholics and Poles, and the Catholic Church in Danzig was pro-Polish and opposed National Socialism. Rauschning was removed from his position by Forster and replaced by Arthur Greiser in November 1934. He later appealed to the public not to vote for the Nazis in

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10106-466: The Presence of a Polish diplomatic representative in Danzig was signed between the Polish government and the Danzig authorities. In article 6, the Polish government undertook not to conclude any international agreements regarding Danzig without previous consultation with the Free City's government. A separate Polish post office was established, besides the existing municipal one. Unlike Mandatory territories, which were entrusted to member countries,

10269-434: The Reconstruction of the Reich , the Länder (states) lost their sovereignty and were demoted to administrative divisions of the Reich government. Effectively, they lost most of their power to the Gaue that were originally just regional divisions of the party, but took over most competencies of the state administration in their respective sectors. During the Röhm Purge of 30 June to 2 July 1934 (also known as

10432-433: The SA had 400,000 members and its running street battles with the SPD and Communist paramilitaries (who also fought each other) reduced some German cities to combat zones. Paradoxically, although the Nazis were among the main instigators of this disorder, part of Hitler's appeal to a frightened and demoralised middle class was his promise to restore law and order. Overt antisemitism was played down in official Nazi rhetoric, but

10595-514: The SA retained some autonomy. Being composed largely of unemployed workers, many SA men took the Nazis' socialist rhetoric seriously. At this time, the Hitler salute (borrowed from the Italian fascists ) and the greeting "Heil Hitler!" were adopted throughout the party. The Nazis contested elections to the national parliament (the Reichstag ) and to the state legislature (the Landtage ) from 1924, although at first with little success. The " National Socialist Freedom Movement " polled 3% of

10758-437: The Senate of Danzig approved cross-border religious bodies. Danzig's Regional Synodal Federation — just as the regional synodal federation of the autonomous Memelland  — retained the status of an ecclesiastical province within EKapU . After the German annexation of the Free City in 1939, the EKapU merged the Danzig regional synodal federation in 1940 into the Ecclesiastical Region of Danzig-West Prussia. This included

10921-512: The State to share profits of land and land for national needs to be taken away without compensation. In general, the manifesto was antisemitic , anti-capitalist , anti-democratic , anti-Marxist and anti-liberal . To increase its appeal to larger segments of the population, on the same day as Hitler's Hofbräuhaus speech on 24 February 1920, the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ("National Socialist German Workers' Party", or Nazi Party). The name

11084-456: The US and Canada. At the same time, between 1923 and 1929, Danzig's own Jewish population increased from roughly 7,000 to 10,500. Native Jews and newcomers established themselves in the city and contributed to its civic life, culture and economy. Danzig became a venue for international meetings of Jewish organisations, such as the convention of delegates from Jewish youth organisations of various nations, attended by David Ben-Gurion , which founded

11247-486: The Weimar Republic government. Hitler was appointed as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. The Reichstag fire on 27 February 1933 gave Hitler a pretext for suppressing his political opponents. The following day he persuaded the Reich's President Paul von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree , which suspended most civil liberties . The NSDAP won the parliamentary election on 5 March 1933 with 44% of votes, but failed to win an absolute majority. After

11410-414: The approximate 6,000 at the beginning of 1923. By November 1923, Hitler had decided that the time was right for an attempt to seize power in Munich, in the hope that the Reichswehr (the post-war German military) would mutiny against the Berlin government and join his revolt. In this, he was influenced by former General Erich Ludendorff , who had become a supporter—though not a member—of the Nazis. On

11573-454: The attention of the German authorities, who were suspicious of any organisation that appeared to have subversive tendencies. In July 1919, while stationed in Munich , army Gefreiter Adolf Hitler was appointed a Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance unit) of the Reichswehr (army) by Captain Mayr , the head of the Education and Propaganda Department (Dept Ib/P) in Bavaria . Hitler

11736-507: The authorities. In contrast to Germany, which exercised capital outflow control since 1931, emigration of Danzig's Jews was nonetheless somewhat easier, with capital transfers enabled by the Bank of Danzig . Moreover, the comparatively few Danzig Jews were offered easier refuge in safe countries because of favorable Free City migration quotas. After the anti-Jewish riots of Kristallnacht of 9/10 November 1938 in Germany, similar riots took place on 12/13 November in Danzig. The Great Synagogue

11899-542: The city had been part of Poland until 1793, it was rightfully part of Poland anyway. However, Wilson had promised that national self-determination would be the basis of the Treaty of Versailles. As 90% of the people in Danzig in this period were German, the Allied leaders at the Paris Peace Conference compromised by creating the Free City of Danzig, a city-state in which Poland had certain special rights. It

12062-779: The city was thus given a distinctively Dutch appearance. Danzig become known as "the Amsterdam of the East", a wealthy seaport and trading crossroads that linked together the economics of western and eastern Europe, and whose location at where the Vistula flowed into the Baltic led to various powers competing to rule the city. Although Danzig became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, Prussia

12225-737: The city's autonomy and sovereignty, Poland sought to extend its privileges. Throughout the Polish–Soviet War , local dockworkers went on strike and refused to unload ammunition supplies for the Polish Army . While the ammunition was finally unloaded by British troops, the incident led to the establishment of a permanent ammunition depot at the Westerplatte and the construction of a trade and naval port in Gdynia , whose total exports and imports surpassed those of Danzig in May 1932. In December 1925,

12388-637: The city's capture in the early months of 1945 by the Soviet and Polish troops, a significant number of German inhabitants perished in ill-prepared and over-delayed attempts to evacuate by sea, while the remainder fled or were expelled . The city was fully integrated into Poland as a result of the Potsdam Agreement , while members of the pre-war Polish ethnic minority started returning and new Polish settlers began to come. Gdańsk suffered severe underpopulation from these events and did not recover until

12551-651: The city's senate had a majority of local Nazis , and agitation to rejoin Germany was stepped up. Many Jews fled from German persecution. After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Nazis abolished the Free City and incorporated the area into the newly formed Reichsgau of Danzig-West Prussia . The Nazis classified the Poles and Jews living in the city as subhumans , subjecting them to discrimination, forced labor, and extermination at Nazi concentration camps , including nearby Stutthof (now Sztutowo , Poland). Upon

12714-516: The colloquial Nazi (so Leopold von Mildenstein in his article series Ein Nazi fährt nach Palästina published in Der Angriff in 1934). The term Parteigenosse (party member) was commonly used among Nazis, with its corresponding feminine form Parteigenossin . Before the rise of the party, these terms had been used as colloquial and derogatory words for a backward peasant , or an awkward and clumsy person. It derived from Ignaz,

12877-533: The consistory had relocated to Lübeck and opened a refugee centre for Danzigers (Hilfsstelle beim evangelischen Konsistorium Danzig) led by Upper Consistorial Councillor Gerhard M. Gülzow  [ de ] . The Lutheran congregation of St. Mary's Church could relocate its valuable parament collection and the presbytery granted it on loan to St. Annen Museum in Lübeck after the war. Other Lutheran congregations of Danzig could reclaim their church bells, which

13040-568: The creation of the Free City in the aftermath of World War I a security police force was created on 19 August 1919. On 9 April 1920, a military style marching band, the Musikkorps , was formed. Led by composer Ernst Stieberitz, the police band became well known in the city and abroad. In 1921, Danzig's government reformed the entire institution and established the Schutzpolizei , or protection police. Helmut Froböss became President of

13203-600: The denaturalisation of O'Rourke, who subsequently became a Polish citizen. O'Rourke was succeeded by Bishop Carl Maria Splett , a native from the Free City area. Splett remained bishop after the German annexation of the Free City. In early 1941, he applied for admitting the Danzig diocese as member in Archbishop Adolf Bertram 's Eastern German Ecclesiastical Province and thus at the Fulda Conference of Bishops ; however, Bertram, also speaker of

13366-667: The discredited Social Democrats and the Zentrum, whose leader, Heinrich Brüning , headed a weak minority government. The inability of the democratic parties to form a united front, the self-imposed isolation of the Communists and the continued decline of the economy, all played into Hitler's hands. He now came to be seen as de facto leader of the opposition and donations poured into the Nazi Party's coffers. Some major business figures, such as Fritz Thyssen , were Nazi supporters and gave generously and some Wall Street figures were allegedly involved, but many other businessmen were suspicious of

13529-506: The dominant figure. However, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin in June 1921, a mutiny broke out within the party in Munich. Members of its executive committee wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP). Upon returning to Munich on 11 July, Hitler angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that his resignation would mean the end of

13692-403: The economic and political situation had stabilised and the extremist upsurge of 1923 had faded, so there was no prospect of further revolutionary adventures. Instead, Hitler intended to alter the party's strategy to achieving power through what he called the "path of legality". The Nazi Party of 1925 was divided into the "Leadership Corps" ( Korps der politischen Leiter ) appointed by Hitler and

13855-420: The election, hundreds of thousands of new members joined the party for opportunistic reasons, most of them civil servants and white-collar workers. They were nicknamed the "casualties of March" (German: Märzgefallenen ) or "March violets" (German: Märzveilchen ). To protect the party from too many non-ideological turncoats who were viewed by the so-called "old fighters" (alte Kämpfer) with some mistrust,

14018-401: The end of 30s reached 20% (including Poles who arrived after the war). The Polish population increased disproportionately in the 1920s and 1930s and was estimated at 20% shortly before the start of World War II in 1939. The Catholic priest Franciszek Rogaczewski estimated that Poles made up about 20% of the population of the Free City of Danzig in 1936. The accuracy of demographic estimates

14181-576: The establishment of the State of Israel, he took an officers course in London – for third, then second, and then first officer. In 1951, he led a sailors' strike which was broken up by the Israeli government. In 1958, he left to study in United States , earning a BA in international relations from Georgetown University and an MBA in economics from Columbia University . During this time, he worked as

14344-504: The extreme nationalist tendencies of the Nazis and preferred to support the traditional conservative parties instead. In 1930, as the price for joining a coalition government of the Land (state) of Thuringia , the Nazi Party received the state ministries of the Interior and Education. On 23 January 1930, Wilhelm Frick was appointed to these ministries, becoming the first Nazi to hold

14507-874: The first two years of the state's existence. Anyone desiring German citizenship had to leave their property and make their residence outside the Free State of Danzig area in the remaining parts of Germany. In 1924, 54.7% of the populace was Protestant (220,731 persons, mostly Lutherans within the united old-Prussian church ), 34.5% was Roman Catholic (140,797 persons), and 2.4% Jewish (9,239 persons). Other Protestants included 5,604 Mennonites , 1,934 Calvinists ( Reformed ), 1,093 Baptists , 410 Free Religionists . The population also included 2,129 dissenters , 1,394 faithful of other religions and denominations, and 664 irreligionists . The Jewish community grew from 2,717 in 1910 to 7,282 in 1923 and 10,448 in 1929, many of them immigrants from Poland and Russia. The mostly Lutheran and partially Reformed congregations situated in

14670-613: The formation of a majority government impossible. The result was weak ministries governing by decree. Under Comintern directives, the Communists maintained their policy of treating the Social Democrats as the main enemy, calling them " social fascists ", thereby splintering opposition to the Nazis. Later, both the Social Democrats and the Communists accused each other of having facilitated Hitler's rise to power by their unwillingness to compromise. Chancellor Franz von Papen called another Reichstag election in November, hoping to find

14833-752: The general membership ( Parteimitglieder ). The party and the SA were kept separate and the legal aspect of the party's work was emphasised. In a sign of this, the party began to admit women. The SA and the SS members (the latter founded in 1925 as Hitler's bodyguard, and known originally as the Schutzkommando ) had to all be regular party members. In the 1920s the Nazi Party expanded beyond its Bavarian base. At this time, it began surveying voters in order to determine what they were dissatisfied with in Germany, allowing Nazi propaganda to be altered accordingly. Catholic Bavaria maintained its right-wing nostalgia for

14996-577: The grounds that the Germans had such an utter contempt for the Poles together with the rest of the Slavic peoples that such losses were bound to deeply wound their feelings and cause a war. For all the bitterness of the French–German enmity , the Germans had a certain grudging respect for the French that did not extend to the Poles at all. During the Paris Peace Conference, a commission of inquiry chaired by

15159-650: The ideology of Nazism . Its precursor, the German Workers' Party ( Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ; DAP), existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the extremist German nationalist (" Völkisch nationalist "), racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against communist uprisings in post– World War I Germany. The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti– big business , anti- bourgeois , and anti-capitalist rhetoric; it

15322-461: The impression they were a much larger party). Among the party's earlier members were Ernst Röhm of the Army's District Command VII; Dietrich Eckart, who has been called the spiritual father of National Socialism; then- University of Munich student Rudolf Hess ; Freikorps soldier Hans Frank ; and Alfred Rosenberg , often credited as the philosopher of the movement. All were later prominent in

15485-509: The inflation of the 1920s, so who feared Bolshevism more than anything else. The small business class was receptive to Hitler's antisemitism, since it blamed Jewish big business for its economic problems. University students, disappointed at being too young to have served in the War of 1914–1918 and attracted by the Nazis' radical rhetoric, also became a strong Nazi constituency. By 1929, the party had 130,000 members. The party's nominal Deputy Leader

15648-530: The interwar period, German nationalists spoke of the "open wound in the east" that was the Free City of Danzig. However, until the building of Gdynia , almost all of Poland's exports went through Danzig, and Polish public opinion was opposed to Germany having a "choke-hold" on the Polish economy . The Free City of Danzig (1920–39) included the city of Danzig (Gdańsk), the towns of Zoppot (Sopot) , Oliva (Oliwa) , Tiegenhof (Nowy Dwór Gdański) , Neuteich (Nowy Staw) and some 252 villages and 63 hamlets , covering

15811-619: The late 1950s. Danzig had an early history of independence. It was a leading player in the Prussian Confederation directed against the Teutonic Monastic State of Prussia . The Confederation stipulated with the Polish king, Casimir IV Jagiellon , that the Polish Crown would be invested with the role of head of state of western parts of Prussia ( Royal Prussia ). In contrast, Ducal Prussia remained

15974-518: The local non-German population. The census also often relied on information provided by landlords or homeowners instead of asking each citizen directly; as a result, Kijański stated that "the results of the census show significant deviations from the actual proportions in terms of nationality data". According to Kijański, many Poles in Danzig did not reveal their nationality in the census as a result of this intimidation, as well as pressure from German employers. He estimated that Poles accounted for 14.5% of

16137-549: The movement. Later in 1918, Karl Harrer (a journalist and member of the Thule Society ) convinced Drexler and several others to form the Politischer Arbeiter-Zirkel (Political Workers' Circle). The members met periodically for discussions with themes of nationalism and racism directed against Jewish people. In December 1918, Drexler decided that a new political party should be formed, based on

16300-522: The name "German Party" ( Deutsche Partei or DP) from 1924 to 1925. The Nazis failed to remain unified in the DP, as in the north, the right-wing Volkish nationalist supporters of the Nazis moved to the new German Völkisch Freedom Party , leaving the north's left-wing Nazi members, such as Joseph Goebbels retaining support for the party. Pardoned by the Bavarian Supreme Court, Hitler

16463-472: The night of 8 November, the Nazis used a patriotic rally in a Munich beer hall to launch an attempted putsch ("coup d'état"). This so-called Beer Hall Putsch attempt failed almost at once when the local Reichswehr commanders refused to support it. On the morning of 9 November, the Nazis staged a march of about 2,000 supporters through Munich in an attempt to rally support. The two groups exchanged fire, after which 15 putschists, four police officers, and

16626-636: The number of Catholic parishes increased and most formerly Protestant churches were taken over for Catholic services. Since 1883 most of the Jewish congregations in the later territory of Free State had merged into the Synagogal Community of Danzig. Only the Jews of Tiegenhof ran their own congregation until 1938. Danzig became a centre of Polish and Russian Jewish emigration to North America. Between 1920 and 1925 60,000 Jews emigrated via Danzig to

16789-761: The offices of party leader, head of state and chief of government in one, taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler by passage of the Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich . The Chancellery of the Führer , officially an organisation of the Nazi Party, took over the functions of the Office of the President (a government agency), blurring the distinction between structures of party and state even further. The SS increasingly exerted police functions,

16952-418: The official census, 95% were Germans , with the rest mainly either Kashubians or Poles . According to E. Cieślak, the population registers of the Free City show that in 1929 the Polish population numbered 35,000, or 10.7% of the population. Some estimates put the proportion of Danzig Poles between at between 10 and 13%. Henryk Stępniak estimates the 1929 Polish population as around 22,000, or around 6% of

17115-596: The party is still outlawed in many European countries, including Germany and Austria. The renaming of the German Worker's Party (DAP) to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) was partially driven by a desire to draw upon both left-wing and right-wing ideals, with "Socialist" and "Workers'" appealing to the left, and "National" and "German" appealing to the right. Nazi , the informal and originally derogatory term for

17278-586: The party issued a freeze on admissions that remained in force from May 1933 to 1937. On 23 March, the parliament passed the Enabling Act of 1933 , which gave the cabinet the right to enact laws without the consent of parliament. In effect, this gave Hitler dictatorial powers. Now possessing virtually absolute power, the Nazis established totalitarian control as they abolished labour unions and other political parties and imprisoned their political opponents, first at wilde Lager , improvised camps, then in concentration camps . Nazi Germany had been established, yet

17441-542: The party leadership. With the support of Anton Drexler, Hitler became chief of propaganda for the party in early 1920. Hitler began to make the party more public, and organised its biggest meeting yet of 2,000 people on 24 February 1920 in the Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München . Such was the significance of this particular move in publicity that Karl Harrer resigned from the party in disagreement. It

17604-433: The party supported the middle-class and that its socialist policy was meant to give social welfare to German citizens deemed part of the Aryan race. They became one of many völkisch movements that existed in Germany. Like other völkisch groups, the DAP advocated the belief that through profit-sharing instead of socialisation Germany should become a unified "people's community" ( Volksgemeinschaft ) rather than

17767-638: The party treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz and business manager Max Amann . The party had a capable propaganda head in Gregor Strasser , who was promoted to national organizational leader in January 1928. These men gave the party efficient recruitment and organizational structures. The party also owed its growth to the gradual fading away of competitor nationalist groups, such as the German National People's Party (DNVP). As Hitler became

17930-495: The party were always German nationalist expansionism and antisemitism . These two goals were fused in his mind by his belief that Germany's external enemies—Britain, France and the Soviet Union—were controlled by the Jews and that Germany's future wars of national expansion would necessarily entail a war of annihilation against them. For Hitler and his principal lieutenants, national and racial issues were always dominant. This

18093-439: The party's most active orator, appearing in public as a speaker 31 times within the first year after his self-discovery. Crowds began to flock to hear his speeches. Hitler always spoke about the same subjects: the Treaty of Versailles and the Jewish question . This deliberate technique and effective publicising of the party contributed significantly to his early success, about which a contemporary poster wrote: "Since Herr Hitler

18256-505: The party's propaganda chief were major factors. While Strasser had used his position to promote his own leftish version of national socialism, Goebbels was completely loyal to Hitler, and worked only to improve Hitler's image. The 1930 elections changed the German political landscape by weakening the traditional nationalist parties, the DNVP and the DVP, leaving the Nazis as the chief alternative to

18419-405: The party, but at best the seventh member of the committee... And a few years ago I had to complain to a party office that your first proper membership card of the DAP, bearing the signatures of Schüssler and myself, was falsified, with the number 555 being erased and number 7 entered. Although Hitler initially wanted to form his own party, he claimed to have been convinced to join the DAP because it

18582-580: The party-controlled German state set in motion the Final Solution – an industrial system of genocide that carried out mass murders of around 6 million Jews and millions of other targeted victims in what has become known as the Holocaust . Adolf Hitler , the party's leader since 1921, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933, and quickly seized power afterwards. Hitler established

18745-475: The party. Hitler announced he would rejoin on condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich. The committee agreed, and he rejoined the party on 26 July as member 3,680. Hitler continued to face some opposition within the NSDAP, as his opponents had Hermann Esser expelled from the party and they printed 3,000 copies of a pamphlet attacking Hitler as

18908-556: The person had a spouse, the spouse also had to be a "racially pure" Aryan. Party members could not be related either directly or indirectly to a so-called "non-Aryan". Even before it had become legally forbidden by the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, the Nazis banned sexual relations and marriages between party members and Jews. Party members found guilty of Rassenschande ("racial defilement") were persecuted heavily. Some members were even sentenced to death. Hitler quickly became

19071-471: The physically and mentally disabled. The National Socialist Programme was a formulation of the policies of the party. It contained 25 points and is therefore also known as the "25-point plan" or "25-point programme". It was the official party programme, with minor changes, from its proclamation as such by Hitler in 1920, when the party was still the German Workers' Party, until its dissolution. At

19234-657: The political principles that he endorsed, by combining his branch of the Workers' Committee for a good Peace with the Political Workers' Circle. On 5 January 1919, Drexler created a new political party and proposed it should be named the "German Socialist Workers' Party", but Harrer objected to the term "socialist"; so the term was removed and the party was named the German Workers' Party ( Deutsche Arbeiterpartei , DAP). To ease concerns among potential middle-class supporters, Drexler made clear that unlike Marxists

19397-447: The population, increasing to around 13% in the 1930s. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Polish population increased. According to some sources, in 1938, the Free City's population of 410,000 was 98% German, 1% Polish and 1% other. Other estimates suggest the proportion of Poles in the population of the Free City was around 20% in 1939 or around 25% in 1936. Based on the estimated voting patterns (according to Stępniak many Poles voted for

19560-497: The post for the remainder of his life. Hitler soon acquired the title Führer ("leader") and after a series of sharp internal conflicts it was accepted that the party would be governed by the Führerprinzip ("leader principle"). Under this principle, the party was a highly centralised entity that functioned strictly from the top down, with Hitler at the apex. Hitler saw the party as a revolutionary organisation, whose aim

19723-431: The recognised head of the German nationalists, other groups declined or were absorbed. In the late 1920s, seeing the party's lack of breakthrough into the mainstream, Goebbels proposed that instead of focusing all of their propaganda in major cities where there was competition from other political movements, they should instead begin holding rallies in rural areas where they would be more effective. Despite these strengths,

19886-569: The representatives of the German population of Danzig complained about being severed from Germany, and constantly demanded that the Free City of Danzig be reincorporated into the Reich . The Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan wrote that a sense of Danzig national identity emerged during the Free City's existence, and the German population of Danzig not always regarded themselves as Germans who had been unjustly taken out of Germany. The loss of Danzig did although deeply hurt German national pride and in

20049-488: The result of Kulturkampf laws, German Catholics, who made up about 40% of the city's population, supported the Polish national movement and stood up for Polish interests. This was further exacerbated by anti-Catholic legislation introduced by NSDAP-dominated Danzig Senate, which involved arrests of Catholic clergy as well as the activists and members of the Catholic Centre Party . The Catholic Centre Party

20212-549: The return of the German officers. The rights of the Second Polish Republic within the territory of the Free City were stipulated in the Treaty of Paris of 9 November 1920 and the Treaty of Warsaw of 24 October 1921. The details of the Polish privileges soon became a permanent matter of disputes between the local populace and the Polish State. While the representatives of the Free City tried to uphold

20375-453: The revolutionary upheavals that followed. Drexler followed the views of militant nationalists of the day, such as opposing the Treaty of Versailles , having antisemitic , anti-monarchist and anti-Marxist views, as well as believing in the superiority of Germans whom they claimed to be part of the Aryan " master race " ( Herrenvolk ). However, he also accused international capitalism of being

20538-481: The rise of communism and internationalist politics . These were all well-known themes popular with various Weimar paramilitary groups such as the Freikorps . Drexler's movement received attention and support from some influential figures. Supporter Dietrich Eckart , a well-to-do journalist, brought military figure Felix Graf von Bothmer , a prominent supporter of the concept of "national socialism", to address

20701-564: The sea", a promise that implied that Danzig, which occupied a strategic location where the Vistula river flowed into the Baltic sea, should become part of Poland. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Polish delegation led by Roman Dmowski asked for Wilson to honor point 13 of the Fourteen Points by transferring Danzig to Poland, arguing that Poland would not be economically viable without Danzig and that since

20864-483: The ship, the British opened fire. Two immigrants and a crewman were killed, and many passengers seriously wounded. The ship was towed to Haifa , where it was abandoned. The passengers were deported to France , and then to Lübeck, Germany . In late 1947, Aronowica served as the captain of the Pan York , another ship attempting to bring Jewish refugees to Palestine in defiance of the British blockade. In 1949, following

21027-409: The summer of 1918 that the Germans had such a ferocious contempt for Poles that it was unwise for Germany to lose any territory to Poland even if morally justified as the Germans would never accept losing land to the despised Poles and such a situation was bound to cause a war. During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the British consistently sought to minimize German territorial losses to Poland under

21190-624: The territory of the Free City, which previously used to belong to the Ecclesiastical Province of West Prussia of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union (EKapU), were transformed into the Regional Synodal Federation of the Free City of Danzig after 1920. The executive body of that ecclesiastical province, the consistory (est. 1 November 1886), was seated in Danzig. After 1920 it

21353-464: The territory was bound by the imposed union with Poland covering foreign policy, defence, customs , railways and post, but remained distinct from both the post-war German Republic and the newly independent Polish Republic . In addition, Poland was given certain rights pertaining to port facilities in the city. In the 1920 Constituent Assembly election , the Polish Party received over 6% of

21516-564: The territory. The first apostolic administrator was Edward O'Rourke (born in Minsk and of Irish ancestry) who became Bishop of Danzig on the occasion of the elevation of the administration to an exempt diocese in 1925. He was naturalised as Danziger on the same occasion. In 1938 he resigned after quarrels with the Nazi-dominated Senate of Danzig on appointments of parish priests of Polish ethnicity. The senate also instigated

21679-480: The vote in the December 1924 Reichstag elections and this fell to 2.6% in 1928 . State elections produced similar results. Despite these poor results and despite Germany's relative political stability and prosperity during the later 1920s, the Nazi Party continued to grow. This was partly because Hitler, who had no administrative ability, left the party organisation to the head of the secretariat, Philipp Bouhler ,

21842-430: The vote, but its percentage of votes later declined to about 3%. A large number of Danzig Poles voted for the Catholic Centre Party instead. In 1921, Poland began to develop the city of Gdynia , then a midsized fishing town. This completely new port north of Danzig was established on territory awarded in 1919, the so-called Polish Corridor . By 1933, the commerce passing through Gdynia exceeded that of Danzig. By 1936,

22005-702: The war ended in Europe. The party was formally abolished on 10 October 1945 by the Allied Control Council , followed by the process of denazification along with trials of major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg. Part of the Potsdam Agreement called for the destruction of the Nazi Party alongside the requirement for the reconstruction of the German political life. In addition,

22168-520: Was Gauleiter of Franconia , where he published his antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer . Beneath the Gauleiter were lower-level officials, the Kreisleiter ("county leaders"), Zellenleiter ("cell leaders") and Blockleiter ("block leaders"). This was a strictly hierarchical structure in which orders flowed from the top and unquestioning loyalty was given to superiors. Only

22331-572: Was Rudolf Hess , but he had no real power in the party. By the early 1930s, the senior leaders of the party after Hitler were Heinrich Himmler , Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring . Beneath the Leadership Corps were the party's regional leaders, the Gauleiters , each of whom commanded the party in his Gau ("region"). Goebbels began his ascent through the party hierarchy as Gauleiter of Berlin-Brandenburg in 1926. Streicher

22494-521: Was a city-state under the protection and oversight of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk , Poland) and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrounding areas. The polity was created on 15 November 1920 in accordance with the terms of Article 100 (Section XI of Part III) of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles after the end of World War I . Although predominantly German-populated ,

22657-579: Was a backlash against socialist and liberal politics in Bavaria as Germany's economic problems deepened and the weakness of the Weimar regime became apparent. The party recruited former World War I soldiers, to whom Hitler as a decorated frontline veteran could particularly appeal, as well as small businessmen and disaffected former members of rival parties. Nazi rallies were often held in beer halls, where downtrodden men could get free beer. The Hitler Youth

22820-513: Was assigned to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the DAP. While Hitler was initially unimpressed by the meetings and found them disorganised, he enjoyed the discussion that took place. While attending a party meeting on 12 September 1919 at Munich's Sterneckerbräu , Hitler became involved in a heated argument with a visitor, Professor Baumann, who questioned the soundness of Gottfried Feder 's arguments against capitalism; Baumann proposed that Bavaria should break away from Prussia and found

22983-602: Was captain of the Exodus on its voyage from the port of Sète , France, a fishing town, on July 11, 1947, carrying 4,515 passengers. The ship was intercepted by a fleet of British war ships led by the British Royal Navy cruiser Ajax . A convoy of destroyers trailed the ship very early on in its voyage. Two British destroyers rammed the ship. After several hours of hand-to-hand combat between passengers armed with smoke bombs trying to prevent British sailors from boarding

23146-564: Was conquered by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806, and in September 1807 Napoleon declared Danzig a semi-independent client state of the French Empire , known as the Free City of Danzig . It lasted seven years, until it was re-incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia in 1814, after Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Leipzig ( Battle of Nations ) by a coalition that included Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Point 13 of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson 's Fourteen Points called for Polish independence to be restored and for Poland to have "secure access to

23309-429: Was even briefly dissolved. Its influence grew with the onset of difficult economic times and the increasing popularity of the Nazi Party in Germany proper. Albert Forster became the Gauleiter in October 1930. The Nazis won 50 percent of votes in the Volkstag elections of 28 May 1933, and took control of the Senate in June 1933, with Hermann Rauschning becoming President of the Senate of Danzig. In contrast to Germany,

23472-477: Was felt that including a city that was 90% German into Poland would be a violation of the principle of national self-determination , but at the same time the promise in the Fourteen Points of allowing Poland "secure access to the sea" gave Poland a claim on Danzig, hence the compromise of the Free City of Danzig. The Free City of Danzig was largely the work of British diplomacy as both the French Premier Georges Clemenceau and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson supported

23635-507: Was formed for the children of party members. The party also formed groups in other parts of Germany. Julius Streicher in Nuremberg was an early recruit and became editor of the racist magazine Der Stürmer . In December 1920, the Nazi Party had acquired a newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter , of which its leading ideologist Alfred Rosenberg became editor. Others to join the party around this time were Heinrich Himmler and World War I flying ace Hermann Göring . On 31 October 1922,

23798-434: Was friendly to the Danzig Poles, and many Poles voted for the Centre Party instead of Polish organisations. The German Catholic clergy in Danzig also strongly supported the Polish minority, and the Bishop of Danzig , Edward O'Rourke , actively fought for the interests of Danzig Poles. In 1929, Tadeusz Kijański, a Polish citizen of Danzig, questioned the results of the official 1923 census, according to which only 3% to 1% of

23961-399: Was guaranteed by law. The political parties in the Free City corresponded with the political parties in Weimar Germany ; the most influential parties in the 1920s were the conservative German National People's Party , the Social Democratic Party of the Free City of Danzig and the Catholic Centre Party . A Communist Party was founded in 1921 with its origins in the Spartacus League and

24124-477: Was in this speech that Hitler enunciated the twenty-five points of the German Workers' Party manifesto that had been drawn up by Drexler, Feder and himself. Through these points he gave the organisation a much bolder stratagem with a clear foreign policy (abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles, a Greater Germany , Eastern expansion and exclusion of Jews from citizenship) and among his specific points were: confiscation of war profits , abolition of unearned incomes,

24287-447: Was inspired by Mussolini and the Fascists, beginning to adopt elements of their program for the Nazi Party and himself. The Italian Fascists also used a straight-armed Roman salute and wore black-shirted uniforms; Hitler would later borrow their use of the straight-armed salute as a Nazi salute . When the Fascists took control of Italy through their coup d'état called the " March on Rome ", Hitler began planning his own coup less than

24450-509: Was intended to draw upon both left-wing and right-wing ideals, with "Socialist" and "Workers'" appealing to the left, and "National" and "German" appealing to the right. The word "Socialist" was added by the party's executive committee (at the suggestion of Rudolf Jung ), over Hitler's initial objections, in order to help appeal to left-wing workers. In 1920, the Nazi Party officially announced that only persons of "pure Aryan descent [ rein arischer Abkunft ]" could become party members and if

24613-400: Was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders. By the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes. The party had little popular support until the Great Depression , when worsening living standards and widespread unemployment drove Germans into political extremism. Central to Nazism were themes of racial segregation expressed in the idea of

24776-414: Was never far from the surface. Germans voted for Hitler primarily because of his promises to revive the economy (by unspecified means), to restore German greatness and overturn the Treaty of Versailles and to save Germany from communism. On 24 April 1932, the Free State of Prussia elections to the Landtag resulted in 36% of the votes and 162 seats for the NSDAP. On 20 July 1932, the Prussian government

24939-424: Was not exclusively for any class and indicated that it favoured neither the left nor the right, but preserved "pure" elements from both "camps" by stating: "From the camp of bourgeois tradition, it takes national resolve, and from the materialism of the Marxist dogma, living, creative Socialism". The votes that the Nazis received in the 1932 elections established the Nazi Party as the largest parliamentary faction of

25102-435: Was ousted by a coup, the Preussenschlag ; a few days later at the July 1932 Reichstag election the Nazis made another leap forward, polling 37% and becoming the largest party in parliament by a wide margin. Furthermore, the Nazis and the Communists between them won 52% of the vote and a majority of seats. Since both parties opposed the established political system and neither would join or support any ministry, this made

25265-419: Was popularised by anti-Nazis and German exiles abroad. Thereafter, the term spread into other languages and eventually was brought back to Germany after World War II. In English, the term is not considered slang and has such derivatives as Nazism and denazification . The Nazi Party grew out of smaller political groups with a nationalist orientation that formed in the last years of World War I . In 1918,

25428-481: Was released from prison on 20 December 1924, against the state prosecutor's objections. On 16 February 1925, Hitler convinced the Bavarian authorities to lift the ban on the NSDAP and the party was formally refounded on 26 February 1925, with Hitler as its undisputed leader. It was at this time Hitler began referring to himself as " der Führer ". The new Nazi Party was no longer a paramilitary organisation and disavowed any intention of taking power by force. In any case,

25591-418: Was responsible for the deaths of at least eleven million people, including 5.5 to 6 million Jews (representing two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe), and between 200,000 and 1,500,000 Romani people . The estimated total number includes the killing of nearly two million non-Jewish Poles , over three million Soviet prisoners of war , communists , and other political opponents, homosexuals,

25754-411: Was restricted in its responsibility to those congregations within the Free City's territory. First General Superintendent Paul Kalweit  [ de ] (1920–1933) and then Bishop Johannes Beermann  [ de ] (1933–1945) presided over the consistory. Unlike the Second Polish Republic , which opposed the cooperation of the United Evangelical Church in Poland with EKapU, Volkstag and

25917-493: Was safe to appoint Hitler as Reich Chancellor, at the head of a cabinet including only a minority of Nazi ministers—which he did on 30 January 1933. In Mein Kampf , Hitler directly attacked both left-wing and right-wing politics in Germany. However, a majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as being a far-right form of politics. When asked in an interview in 1934 whether the Nazis were "bourgeois right-wing" as alleged by their opponents, Hitler responded that Nazism

26080-450: Was small and he could eventually become its leader. He consequently encouraged the organisation to become less of a debating society, which it had been previously, and more of an active political party. Normally, enlisted army personnel were not allowed to join political parties. In this case, Hitler had Captain Karl Mayr 's permission to join the DAP. Further, Hitler was allowed to stay in the army and receive his weekly pay of 20 gold marks

26243-444: Was symbolised by the adoption as the party emblem of the swastika . In German nationalist circles, the swastika was considered a symbol of an " Aryan race " and it symbolised the replacement of the Christian Cross with allegiance to a National Socialist State. The Nazi Party grew significantly during 1921 and 1922, partly through Hitler's oratorical skills, partly through the SA's appeal to unemployed young men, and partly because there

26406-418: Was taken over and demolished by the local authorities in 1939. Most Jews had already left the city, and the Jewish Community of Danzig decided to organize its own emigration in early 1939. The Free City was governed by the Senate of the Free City of Danzig, which was elected by the parliament ( Volkstag ) for a legislative period of four years. The official language was German, although the usage of Polish

26569-403: Was the overthrow of the Weimar Republic , which he saw as controlled by the socialists, Jews and the " November criminals ", a term invented to describe alleged elements of society who had 'betrayed the German soldiers' in 1918. The SA ("storm troopers", also known as "Brownshirts") were founded as a party militia in 1921 and began violent attacks on other parties. For Hitler, the twin goals of

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