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CRISIS NO. 7: DANZIG

The whole world suddenly thought it knew the answer last week to the great question of which way Hitler is going to jump next. The world’s answer was Poland. The pretext was the Free City of Danzig, a ward of the League of Nations whose finances and customs are legally controlled by Poland and whose citizens are on- equivocally German. Germany would benefit scarcely at all by the addition of the 754 square miles and 407,000 people of Danzig. Poland would not particularly suffer by their loss, having a much better port in Gdynia, right next door to Danzig. But the Poles feel certain that Danzig would be only the first step in the gobbling of the whole Polish Corridor to the Baltic Sea.

Last week’s case of nerves was based on relatively small facts. It was Polish Navy Veek and at Gdvnia Poland’s President Moscicki said, “The Baltic Coast, Pomorze, Danzig and Gdynia are our air and sun.” Poland’s fleet steamed through the Gulf of Danzig past Gdvnia and 80,000 Poles swore to defend it to the death.

In Danzig too it was Navy Week and a German rear admiral and marines without arms came to honor Danzigers killed for the German Navy during the Vorld War. About ,400 snappy young Germans arrived from East Prussia, supposedly to man a Danzig Heimwehr to fight off the Poles. Twenty light guns were mounted on Danzig’s Bischof ‘ilountain, protecting the city. An extraordinary series of rumors swept the world, There was a story that a German plane had flown over Gdynia’s naval base on the Hela Peninsula and been shot down on the second round by Polish antiaircraft. It was denied. There was a story that Hitler and Mussolini had met at the Italian border. It was denied.

Inside Germany, 3,000,000 men were in arms. Rabble-rousers cried, “We want no war, but we want our rights.” In a Potsdam pageant run by Propaganda Minister Goebbels, there was a scene of shadowy Ublans riding off to war in August 1914. But at week’s end there was a new rumor that Hitler planned to visit Danzig toward the end of July and that nothing would happen before then. This too the world accepted. Gdynia’s Government CommIssioner SokbI points to Gdynia, built by Poland in the last 15 years

The story of Poland is a rr.’er to the sea—the Vistula. For 350 to outilank Danzig. At top is the bluff on which the Polish naval school stands. Just below it is the years its port has been Danzig. The Poles have finessed Danzig S at Gdynia commercial dock basin. Flush with floor is the boundary of the Free Cityof Danzig. strangle hold on Poland by building the port of Gdynia. Danzig is now largely a symbol of whether Hitler can have what he asks for.

 

Danzig Report Vol. 1 - Nr. 96 - July - August - September - 1997, Page 21.