1938: Danzig

Quietly but inexorably, Danzig in 1938 continued the process of political coordination with the Nazi Reich, which had been begun in the previous year. Inhabited predominately by Germans, the territory was converted into a free city under League of Nations protection by the Treaty of Versailles, and was incorporated within the Polish customs and tariff area. With the weakening of the League's authority, obstacles to a Nazi dictatorship contained in the free city's constitution, were swept aside. The Catholic Center party, the last non-Nazi party represented in the local Diet, went the way of its predecessors when it was dissolved in October 1937. Most of the Socialist and Communist deputies were thereupon imprisoned or exiled, while the Catholics and Nationalists were forced either to join the Nazi party or resign their seats in the Diet. By a process of persecution and intimidation, strikingly similar to Nazi methods in Germany, all opposition was eventually liquidated. On May 29, the Nazi leader, Albert Foerster, was able to announce that the National Socialist party had absorbed the last remaining remnant of dissenters, and that the composition of the Diet was now 70 Nazis and 2 Poles.

Rumors of the forthcoming annexation of Danzig to the Reich continued throughout the year. The inhabitants of Danzig believed it to be imminent after the Austrian Anschluss in March; and in July, Herr Foerster traveled to London, apparently to seek British consent for a plebiscite to establish a basis for return of the territory to Germany. Virtually nothing but Berlin's unwillingness to antagonize Poland stands in the way of unification of the city with the Reich.

Meanwhile, Nazi institutions have been imitated in Danzig to the utmost possible degree. Swastika flags and Nazi organizations are ubiquitous. The population is ordered to listen to German propaganda radio broadcasts. All opposition newspapers have been suppressed. Although Danzig was declared a demilitarized zone by the Treaty of Versailles, the Nazis have introduced a disguised form of conscription. Under a decree of the Danzig Senate, published on October 22, all youths from 18 to 25 are to be recruited in an 'auxiliary police force' where they will receive full military training. The Jewish population of the free city has been subjected to constantly increasing persecution along typical Nazi lines. The German pogroms of Nov. 10 were followed a few days later by a similar outbreak in Danzig; and on Nov. 23, the Nuremberg Racial Laws were adopted by the Danzig Government in full. The great Danzig synagogue was destroyed, and Jewish property was confiscated.

The League's authority has fallen so low that all these violations of the peace treaties and of Danzig's democratic basic statute provoked no public response from the present League High Commissioner. Carl J. Burckhardt of Switzerland. Only the Poles have fought a losing battle to preserve the rights of their own minority in the free city. There is little doubt that the Nazi leaders will next move to break the Polish economic tutelage imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, particularly through control of the customs and railways of the area. But in this they will probably not be successful as long as Berlin values its good relations with Warsaw.