Misplaced Pages

#980019

82-658: It crosses the central part of the country, from the coal mines and steelworks of Upper Silesia in the South to the Baltic Sea port of Gdynia in the North. The line is used mostly by freight trains: passenger connections on it are few. Constructed in the late 1920s and early 1930s, it was one of the biggest investments of the Second Polish Republic . The Coal Trunk-Line starts at the station Chorzów Batory, in

164-399: 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

246-562: 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

328-641: 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

410-403: 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

492-686: 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

574-430: A new settlement was built there, with several condominiums for rail workers and their families. Apart from the line itself, numerous stations along the way were built. Most of them resemble traditional Polish manor houses, with very interesting architecture. The Herby Nowe – Karsznice connection was completed by 1930, soon afterwards the route reached Inowrocław. As the line between Inowrocław and Bydgoszcz already existed,

656-584: 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

738-502: 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

820-522: 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

902-498: 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 , the territory was bound by the imposed union with Poland covering foreign policy, defence, customs , railways and post, but remained distinct from both

SECTION 10

#1732773223981

984-743: 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

1066-691: 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

1148-524: 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 the city's capture in

1230-558: 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

1312-661: 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

1394-596: The Baltic Sea was virtually impossible. As coal was one of the main Polish exports, and transit through Germany was not allowed (due to the German–Polish customs war in the late 1920s and early 1930s), construction of the new line was necessary. On 17 February 1928 the President of Poland Ignacy Mościcki signed a bill which ordered the construction of the 255-kilometer line Herby Nowe – Inowrocław. For unknown reasons,

1476-626: The Baltic ports. The segment of the line from Bydgoszcz to Gdynia is today designated as PKP line 201 , the segment from Chorzów to Bydgoszcz is part of PKP line 131 which diverges from Bydgoszcz towards Tczew. The Coal Trunk-Line was constructed by order of the Polish Government by a private company, the French-Polish Rail Association (FPTK – Francusko-Polskie Towarzystwo Kolejowe). This company maintained

1558-593: 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,

1640-553: 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

1722-497: The Coal Trunk-Line reaches Inowrocław . From there it goes to Bydgoszcz , which had already been connected to Gdańsk and Gdynia (via Laskowice and Tczew ), but the creation of Free City of Danzig made it difficult to keep regular Polish freight movement in the interbellum. Thus, another part of the Coal Trunk-Line between Bydgoszcz and Gdynia was constructed in the early 1930s, via Wierzchucin and Kościerzyna and

SECTION 20

#1732773223981

1804-536: 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

1886-419: 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

1968-644: 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

2050-469: 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

2132-411: 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

2214-583: 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,

2296-457: The Germans, as these lands had belonged to Germany until 1921. Then, in 1926 a Kalety – Herby Nowe – Wieluń – Kępno line was constructed, thanks to which Upper Silesia and Poznań got a direct connection, without the necessity of using the then-German junction at Kreuzburg (Kluczbork). From Herby Nowe, crossing the strategic junctions of Chorzew Siemkowice and Zduńska Wola Karsznice ,

2378-875: 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,

2460-601: 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

2542-752: 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

Polish Coal Trunk-Line - Misplaced Pages Continue

2624-570: 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

2706-578: 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,

2788-663: 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,

2870-596: 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

2952-522: 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,

3034-562: 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

3116-504: 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

3198-546: The Upper Silesian city of Chorzów , heading north. After crossing almost 30 kilometers it reaches Tarnowskie Góry – a very important freight station located on the northern outskirts of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin . Then, the line goes towards Kalety and Herby Nowe . In Herby Nowe, the Coal Trunk-Line proper begins. The connection Chorzów Batory – Kalety had been built before the 1920s, by

3280-507: 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

3362-542: 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

Polish Coal Trunk-Line - Misplaced Pages Continue

3444-401: 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, 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

3526-671: 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

3608-797: 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,

3690-533: 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

3772-568: 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

3854-600: 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

3936-484: The details below. Request from 172.68.168.133 via cp1102 cp1102, Varnish XID 545976523 Upstream caches: cp1102 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 05:53:44 GMT Free City of Danzig The Free City of Danzig ( German : Freie Stadt Danzig ; Polish : Wolne Miasto Gdańsk ) was a city-state under the protection and oversight of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of

4018-416: The early 1940s, the Germans laid a second track on the routes Herby Nowe – Siemkowice (55 km) and Karsznice – Inowrocław (156 km). After the war, the Coal Trunk-Line again gained importance. Transports of Silesian coal to Gdansk and Gdynia were crucial for the Polish economy, so by 1966 electrification of the whole route was completed. However, the original connection Bydgoszcz – Kościerzyna – Gdynia

4100-615: 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

4182-401: 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

SECTION 50

#1732773223981

4264-874: 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

4346-522: 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

4428-423: The important industrial center of Łódź , located just a few kilometers east of the route, was not included in it. Instead, the Coal Trunk-Line crossed the main East-West route ( Warsaw – Łódź – Ostrów Wielkopolski – Poznań) in the vicinity of the town of Zduńska Wola . As a result, a huge nexus was built in Zduńska Wola-Karsznice, which until today is one of the most important junctions of the whole country. Also,

4510-530: 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

4592-410: 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

4674-424: The line is measured from the junction at Herby Nowe to the port of Gdynia (e.g. from South to North). Not included is the connection Chorzów Batory – Herby Nowe (65 km.) Dates of construction of the route: The total length of the connection constructed between 1930 and 1933 – 448 km. Upper Silesia Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include

4756-518: 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

4838-399: The next step was the construction of the last part – from Bydgoszcz to Gdynia, through the Polish Corridor , without entering the territory of the Free City of Danzig . The whole Coal Trunk-Line was completed by 1933, and in 1939 it was connected with Częstochowa , due to the Chorzew Siemkowice – Częstochowa route, which was finished on 23 April 1939. Also, on the same day, the second track

4920-461: 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

5002-418: 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

SECTION 60

#1732773223981

5084-447: 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

5166-430: 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 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

5248-518: 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

5330-416: 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

5412-414: 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

5494-526: The route Herby Nowe – Gdynia from 24 April 1931 until 1 September 1939. During that time, the line was not under the authority of the Polish State Railways ( PKP ), the FPTK directed it from its headquarters in Bydgoszcz. After the war, the whole line was nationalized. The most important stations on the original route are Chorzów , Tarnowskie Góry , Kalety , Herby Nowe , Chorzew Siemkowice , Zduńska Wola Karsznice , Inowrocław , Bydgoszcz , Wierzchucin , Kościerzyna , Somonino and Gdynia . The length of

5576-425: 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

5658-527: The sparsely populated forests and hills of Kashubia . The Coal Trunk-Line ends in the Baltic Sea port of Gdynia, after crossing all of Poland from south to north (appr. 550 kilometers). In 1921–1922 the borders of the Second Polish Republic were finally established. Upper Silesia was divided (see: Silesian Uprisings ) and the boundary left in German hands several crucial junctions, including Kluczbork (Kreuzburg) and Fosowskie (Vossowska). Without these centers, rail communication between Polish Silesia and

5740-409: 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

5822-429: The territory of the Free City of Danzig. During the Second World War German occupiers did not regard the Coal Trunk-Line as a strategic one. For them, the West – East routes were most important, along which military transports were carried. Besides, since the pre-1939 borders were voided, part of the line between Bydgoszcz and Gdynia was replaced by the Bydgoszcz – Tczew – Danzig – Gdynia connection. In spite of this, in

5904-624: 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

5986-564: 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

6068-453: Was abandoned by freight trains which go on the route Bydgoszcz – Tczew – Gdansk – Gdynia, and today is used only by local traffic. Today, the Coal Trunk-Line is one of the most prosperous rail routes in Poland. Passenger trains are few (many passenger trains on Tczew - Inowrocław part of this line), but freight trains are very numerous, as this is the fastest way from the industrial areas of Upper Silesia, Zagłębie Dąbrowskie and Częstochowa to

6150-537: Was completed on the sector between Zduńska Wola Karsznice and Chorzew Siemkowice. Among the guests, invited for a celebration of the opening of the Częstochowa – Siemkowice connection, were the Polish minister of transportation, Juliusz Ulrich and the minister of public works of France, Anatole de Monzie . Between the wars, long-distance passenger trains still used the Bydgoszcz – Danzig – Gdynia connection, crossing

6232-734: 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

6314-485: 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,

6396-631: 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

6478-608: 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

6560-675: 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

6642-489: 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

6724-536: 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

#980019