History of Gdańsk

The German attack on the Polish military depot at Westerplatte marks the start of World War II and the city was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1939.

The centre of Solidarity strikes in the 1980s, after abolishment of communism in 1989 its population faced poverty and large unemployment with most of the ship building industry closed down.

[citation needed] Most likely Mieszko I of Poland founded the town in the 980s, thereby connecting the Polish state ruled by the Piast dynasty with the trade routes of the Baltic Sea.

[4] The very beginning of Gdańsk is related to the fall of Truso in the second half of the 10th century - the Viking Age Emporium situated on eastern side of the Vistula delta.

[8] This stronghold encompassed roughly the area now enclosed by the Rycerska and Sukiennicza streets, and in the 11th century was located at the confluence of the Motława and Vistula rivers.

[8] Starting in the mid-12th and throughout the 13th centuries, the settlement west of the stronghold greatly expanded northwards to comprise the wider area around present-day Rajska and Podbielanska streets in the Old Town.

Because King Władysław I of Poland's troops were unable to relieve Gdańsk from a siege by Brandenburg, the city's Pomeranian judge, Bogusza, appealed to the Teutonic Knights for assistance.

[16] Gdańsk's colony of German merchants and artisans was specifically attacked because they competed with the Knights' town of Elbing (Elbląg), a nearby city.

[19] Although that number has been subject of debate among historians, a consensus has been established that many people were murdered and a considerable part of the town was destroyed in the context of the take-over.

Previously allies against the Baltic tribe of the Old Prussians, Poland and the Teutonic Order engaged in a series of Polish-Teutonic Wars after the Knights' capture of Pomerelia.

Subsequently, Danzig flourished, benefiting from major investment and economic prosperity in the Teutonic Prussia and Poland, which stimulated trade along the Vistula.

The city had become a full member of the Hanseatic League by 1361, but its merchants remained resentful at the barriers to the trade up the Vistula river to Poland, along with the lack of political rights in a state ruled in the interest of the Order's religiously motivated knight-monks.

The takeover of Gdańsk by the Teutonic Order was questioned consistently by the Polish kings Władysław and Casimir III the Great, which led to a series of bloody wars and legal suits in the papal court in 1320 and 1333.

The organisation in its complaint of 1453 mentioned repeated cases in which the Teutonic Knights imprisoned or murdered local patricians and mayors without a court verdict.

In 1471, a refurbished sailing ship under the native Danzig captain Paul Beneke brought the famous altar painting titled The Last Judgment by artist Hans Memling to the city.

The St. Mary's Church and Main Town Hall were completed, with the latter topped with a gilded statue of Polish King Sigismund II Augustus.

[44] After the fall of the uprising in 1711, Rákóczi and his court, including essayist Kelemen Mikes and painter Ádám Mányoki, found refuge in the city.

This arrangement was inspired by the history of the city, which for hundreds of years was part of Poland, with which it shared economic interests, thanks to which it flourished, and within which it enjoyed wide autonomy.

Due to a German-Polish customs war between 1925 and 1934, Poland became focused on international trade; for example, a new railway line was built to connect Silesia with the coast and the new tariffs made it cheaper to send goods through Polish ports rather than German ones.

Nevertheless, a totalitarian society was being constructed in Germany, and especially members of the Polish or Jewish minority required stamina in the face of everyday acts of violence and persecution from the Nazis.

[93] Captain Tadeusz Ziółkowski [pl], who refused to allow the German battleship SMS Schleswig-Holstein to enter the port in the prior days, was also arrested, and then sent to Stutthof and murdered in 1940.

With the start of the war the Nazi regime began its policy of extermination in Pomerania; Poles, Kashubians and Jews[96] and the political opposition[97] were sent to concentration camps, especially neighbouring Stutthof where 85,000 victims perished.

[98] Execution sites of said Poles included Piaśnica, Sztutowo, Nowy Port, Westerplatte and Berlin, whereas the defenders of the Polish Post were massacred in Zaspa.

[106] In August 1944, also two assembly centers for Allied POWs (AGSSt 32 and 33) were established by the Germans in the city, and were soon moved to other locations in German-occupied Poland and France.

[107] In the city itself hundreds of prisoners were subjected to cruel Nazi executions and experiments, which included castration of men and sterilization of women considered dangerous to the "purity of Nordic race" and beheading by guillotine[108] The courts and judicial system in the annexed territories of Nazi Germany was one of the main ways to legislate an extermination policy against ethnic Poles, terminology in the courts was full of statements such as "Polish subhumans" and "Polish rabble".

As of 1948 more than two thirds of the 150,000 inhabitants came from Central Poland, about 15 to 18 percent from Polish-speaking areas east of the Curzon Line that were annexed by the Soviet Union after World War II.

[123] The members of the pre-war Polish minority in the city organized associations dedicated to upholding their past traditions and history; the first one being Związek Weteranów Walk o Polskość Gdańska i Wybrzeża.

[126] The decision to reconstruct a traditional old town was politically motivated in order to symbolize the city's reunification with Poland[126] and limited to the area of the Główne Miasto.

[128][129] 19th and early 20th-century architecture, any traces of German tradition were ignored or regarded as "Prussian barbarism" worth of demolition[130][131] while Flemish-Dutch, Italian and French influences were emphasized.

[138] In 2014, the remains of Danuta Siedzikówna and Feliks Selmanowicz were found at the local Garrison Cemetery, and then their state burial was held in Gdańsk in 2016, with the participation of thousands of people from all over Poland and the highest Polish authorities.