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The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig and nearly 200 towns and villages in the surrounding areas. It was created on 15 November 1920 in accordance with the terms of Article 100 of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles after the end of World War I. The Free City included the city of Danzig and other nearby towns, villages, and settlements that were primarily inhabited by Germans. As the Treaty stated, the region was to remain separated from post-World War I Germany and from the newly independent nation of the Second Polish Republic , but it was not an independent state. The Free City was under League of Nations protection and put into a binding customs union with Poland. Poland was given certain rights pertaining to communication, the railways and port facilities in the city. The Free City was created in order to give Poland access to a well-sized seaport. The city's population of 410,000 was 98% German, 1% was Polish and 1% others. The German population deeply resented being separated from Germany. Poland, despite having been awarded generous rights in the Free City nevertheless went ahead and built, in 1921, with French loans, a completely new port some miles round Danzig Bay on territory awarded them in 1919, laying new railway lines to it also, removing the commerce which would normally have moved through Danzig. By 1933, the commerce passing through Gdynia exceeded that of Danzig. Notwithstanding this, Poland refused to relinquish the trading etc. rights awarded to her, further alienating the Danzigers. By 1936, the city's Senate had a majority of local Nazis. Agitation to rejoin Germany was stepped up. Due to anti-Semitic persecution and oppression, many Jews fled. After 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. Many were sent to their deaths at Nazi concentration camps, including nearby Stutthof . During the city's conquest by the Soviet Army in the early months of 1945, a substantial number of citizens fled or were killed. After the war, many surviving Germans were expelled to West or East Germany as members of the pre-war Polish ethnic minority started returning and as new Polish settlers began to come. Due to these events, Gdańsk suffered severe underpopulation and did not recover until the late 1950s. In 1945 the city officially became part of Poland as a consequence of the Potsdam Agreement.
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