Senate of the Free City of Danzig

The separation of Danzig from the German Reich as a "Free City" without a vote led to the need to draft a constitution.

[2] After the establishment of the Free City of Danzig on November 15, 1920, the Constituent Assembly elected the members of the first senate on December 6.

[4] The rejection of the state budget of 1925 by Deputy President Ernst Ziehm led to a crisis in the government.

This senate was a minority senate, made from a coalition of the SPD, Zentrum, and the German Liberal Party (formed from a 1925 merge of the Free Association of Civil servants, Employees and Workers and the German Party for Progress and Economy (the name of the Free Economic Association since 1920)).

Sahm suffered another setback in a vote to amend the constitution, in which the DNVP succeeded in reducing the number of seats in the Volkstag from 120 to 72.

On January 10, 1931, a new senate was formed under Ernst Ziehm, with its members being parts of the DNVP, Zentrum, and the Liberals.

However, in the autumn of 1931, the NSDAP discussed the possible fall and forceful removal of the Ziehm Senate, decided against by Adolf Hitler.

[6] This Senate was known for increasing authoritarianism in Danzig, even banning the social democratic newspaper Volkstimme for a short time in 1932.

As Senate President of Danzig, he was a rival to Albert Forster, his nominal superior in the Nazi Party (Gauleiter of the city) since 1930.

Greiser was part of the SS empire whilst Forster was closely aligned with the Nazi Party Mandarins Rudolf Hess and later Martin Bormann.