Social Democratic Party of the Free City of Danzig

The Social Democratic Party of the Free City of Danzig was a social democratic party that existed in the Free City of Danzig 1919-1936.

Formation

After due to the requirements of the Versailles Treaty Gdansk removed from the territory of the German Reich and was converted into a free state, the local organization of the SPD from the rest of the party broke away and founded an independent party. However, there were still close ties to the mother party, especially with regard to the substantive orientation of the party.

Organization

The party organization was that of the SPD as a model. In the late twenties, the party had claims to 5,418 members, of whom 950 were women. From 1923 to the end of 1936, the party was a member of the Socialist Workers' International.

The first chairman was from 1919 to 1921 Julius Gehl. From 1921 to 1936, the party was led by Arthur Brill.

The Workers' Youth League was the youth organization of the party and had about 450 members.

History

From August 1925 to October 1926 and again from January 1928 to October 1930, the faction of the Party participated in bourgeois coalition governments in the Danzig Senate. End of 1930, a new right- centrist coalition was formed with the connivance of the National Socialists in the Senate. The Danziger Social Democrats then founded the Workers' Protection Society, a paramilitary organization to defend their interests against the Nazi threat. The Workers' Protection Society had about 4,500 members.

On 5 May 1932, a Social Democratic member of the City Council, Gruhn, murdered by the head of the SS District Neuteich. The People's Voice, the newspaper of the Social Democrats, was subsequently banned for three months because she had reported the only newspaper about this event. In October 1936 120 party members were arrested and the party was banned on 14 October 1936.

On May 25, 1937, the Social Democrat Hans Danziger Wiechmann was murdered by the Gestapo after a visit from Carl Jacob Burckhardt, a High Commissioner of the League.

Election results

Press

From the party's daily newspaper Danziger voice of the people was given out.