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The Teutonic takeover of Danzig (Gdańsk) on 13 November 1308 refers to the incorporation of the city into the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights. The knights moved into the fortress as an ally of Poland, thought to aid the Poles in their war for Pomerelia inheritance with the Margraviate of Brandenburg, who was the legal heir and held the city of Danzig, but not the fortress. When the King of Poland failed to pay the Teutonic Order for the hired troops, the Order took the territory in liew of payment. Pomerelia was united with Prussia. The Prussian Confederation seceded from the Order after the Thirteen Years War. The takeover marks the beginning of tensions between Poland and the Teutonic Order.

Background

In the 13th century, the Pomerelian duchy was ruled by members of the Samborides. These dukes asserted their power by fortified strongholds. The major stronghold of the area was at the location of present-day Gdansk's Old Town. The adjacted town-like settlement developed from a market place of German tradesmen and was granted Lübeck city rights by duke Swantipolk or Swietopolk II (Zwantepolc de Danceke) in 1224.

After Mestwin II, the last member of the Samborides died in 1294, disputes over succession arose. Involved in internal dynastic conflicts, Mestwin had promised his duchy to Conrad, Margrave of Brandenburg-Stendal, for aiding him in his struggles with his brother, Wratislaw. Yet, in the 1282 Treaty of Kępno he also promised Pomerelia to his ally Przemyslaw II, duke and later king of Poland. The Teutonic Order, who also held claims regarding Pomerelia, had inherited Mewe from Sambor II, thus gaining a foothold on the left bank of the Vistula.

At the beginning of the 14th century, the region was plunged into inheritance war involving local Pomeranian nobility and the principality of Margraviate of Brandenburg to the west, which had acquired rights by the Treaty of Arnswalde of 1269. Brandenburg's claim to the harbour city and Pomerania was partially based on a treaty of August 8, 1305 between the Rulers of Brandenburg and Wenceslaus III, promising the Meissen territory to the Bohemian crown in exchange for Pomerelia, although it never was finalised.

Teutonic Knights called in

In Summer of 1308, a Pomeranian rebellion in the city unseated the small forces loyal to King Władysław I of Poland present there since 1306, and allied with Waldemar of Brandenburg who entered the town, but not the castle which was held by a small garrison loyal to the king. They, and the city's Pomeranian judge and castellan, Bogusza, on the advice of the Dominican prior Wilhelm, appealed to the Teutonic Knights in Prussia for assistance.

The Knights, led by Heinrich von Plötzke (and a relative of Gunther von Schwarzburg of the same name) agreed to aid Bogusza, and were to garrison the town for a year. A force of 100 knights and 200 supporters arrived at the castle around August; the Brandenburgers lifted the siege without any combat. The rebellious inhabitants, who supported the Brandegrburgers, however, remained opposed to the Polish-Teutonic takeover. In September, the Teutonic Knights, together with the Polish garrison, begun their own siege of the city. Soon, however, tensions rose, as both sides vied for control; eventually the Polish knights with Bogusza left the town, leaving the siege under Teutonic Knights control.

Controversy

Massacre

The city's website on its history pages states that "Teutonic Knights..., having captured the castle in 1308 butchered the population. Since then the event is known as "the Gdańsk slaughter ". While this term has not entered into English historiography ( ), it is known in Polish as rzeź Gdańska (). A "Monument commemorates the massacre of the population of Gdansk in 1308."

Norman Davies, in his extensive history of Poland notes that the Knights "drove Waldemar from the city, and calmly slaughtered its inhabitants".

Contemporary Polish reports spread by Władysław indicated that 10,000 inhabitants were slain in the city (that number was also mentioned in the Papal Bull of 1310), although that number has also been considered greater than the city's population at the time. The accusations of killing up to 10000 people had been made in the course of Poland suing the Teutonic Knights to return Pomerelia, and therefore need to be handled with care, especially as there were parallels to the contemporary prosecution of the Knights Templar. As a result of the suit, the Teutonic Knights were even briefly excommunicated by the pope, yet that decision could have been made for financial reasons as to keep Polish taxes and was reversed soon after. In fact, the Knights moved their headquarters from Venice to the Ordensburg Marienburg. The lawsuits did not have any practical effect on the order.

Hartmut Boockmann stresses that 10,000 is a "typical medieval number abundantly used by contemporary chroniclers" meaning "very much", and that this figure seems far too high compared to an overall population of just 130,000 in all of Pomerelia. He also confirms the medieval law suits filed against the order mentioning the 10,000 figure, and gives as a rationale for these suits the inability of Wladislaw Lokietek to conquer Pomerelia by military force due to his involvements in inner Poland. Based on newest Polish research, Boockmann gives a number close to a hundred dead. Boockmann concludes that the order performed a "calculated act of terror" and destroyed the town, but that this was not accompagnied by a large scale massacre.

During the Cold War, in a polemic with US congressman B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee who had stated "The citizens of Danzig are German as they always had been", Polish politician and writer Jędrzej Giertych replied that the Knights treacherously gained access into the Polish garrison as allies, then turned their arms against the Poles, massacred first the soldiers, then the civilians, 10,000 men, women and children.

Matthew Kuefler noted: "German and Polish historians in the twentieth century tended to have diverging both on the question of whether Pomeralia really "belonged" to Poland and also on the degree of ferocity of the order's conquest".

Ethnicity of the townspeople

According to Hartmut Boockmann, the town was primarily inhabited by Germans.

James Minahan wrote that the city inhabitants, for the most part, were Kashubians.

Further conquest of Pomerelia

The "New Cambridge Medieval History" of 1999 states "when the Poles refused to accept monetary compensation, the Order resolved the ensuing conflict by conquering further towns like Schwetz (Świecie)". The local colony of merchants and artisans was specifically attacked because they competed with the Knights' town of Elbing (Elbląg), a nearby city.. The Knights also attacked Dirschau (Tczew).

Part of the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights

The Knights then captured the rest of Pomerelia from Brandenburg's troops. In September 1309, Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg-Stendal sold his claim to the territory to the Teutonic Order for 10,000 marks in the Treaty of Soldin (now Myślibórz), thereby connecting the Order's territory with that of the Holy Roman Empire. Danzig was incorporated into the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights.

Political aftermath

Previously allied against the Prussians, the takeover triggered a series of conflicts between Poland and the Teutonic Order. The possession of Danzig and Pomerelia by the Teutonic Order was questioned consistently by the Polish kings Wladislaus I and Casimir the Great in legal suits in the papal court in 1320 and 1333. Also, in the 1330s, a war ensued.

Peace was established in the Treaty of Kalisz in 1343; although the Polish kings were able to retain the title "Duke of Pomerania" and were recognized as titular overlords of the crusaders, the Knights retained control of Danzig.

The city under the Order

Development of the city initially stagnated after its capture by the Teutonic Knights. Initially the new rulers tried to reduce the economic significance of Danzig by abolishing the local government and the privileges of the Lübeck traders. This apparently relates to the fact that the city council, including Arnold Hecht and Conrad Letzkau, was removed and beheaded in 1411. Later they had to accept the fact that city defended its independence and was the largest and most important seaport of the region after overtaking Elbing. Subsequently it flourished, benefiting from major investment and economic prosperity in Monastic state of Teutonic Knights and Poland, which stimulated trade along the Vistula. The city had become a full member of the merchant association called 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.

See also

• Siege of Danzig
• History of Gdańsk
• Teutonic Order#Against Poland
• History of Pomerania#Eastern Pomerania and Poland

External links

• Map of Holy Roman Empire at time of Hohenstaufen 1138-1254 including Pomerania, Pomerelia.

References

1. David Abulafia et al., The New Cambridge Medieval History, 1999, Vol.5
2. Norman Davies, God's Playground: A history of Poland, 1979
3. Poland's Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych, Dzieje miast Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej: Polska w słowie i obrazach, 1928
4. ^ Gieysztor, Alexander, Stefan Kieniewicz, Emanuel Rostworowski, Janusz Tazbir, and Henryk Wereszycki. History of Poland. PWN. Warsaw, 1979. ISBN 8301003928
5. www.gdansk.pl
6. Lech Krzyżanowski, Gdańsk, Sopot, Gdynia: A Guide to the Triune City, 1974
7. Norman Davies, God's Playground: A history of Poland, 1979
8. Urban, Thomas. "Rezydencja książąt Pomorskich". Template:Pl icon
9. ^ Urban, William. The Teutonic Knights: A Military History. Greenhill Books. London, 2003. ISBN 1853675350
10. ^ Matthew Kuefler, The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality,
11. ^ Hartmut Boockmann, Ostpreussen und Westpreussen, Siedler, 2002, p.158, ISBN 3-88680-212-4
12. Hartmut Boockmann, Ostpreussen und Westpreussen, Siedler, 2002, p.157, ISBN 3-88680-212-4
13. Hartmut Boockmann, Ostpreussen und Westpreussen, Siedler, 2002, p.158, ISBN 3-88680-212-4: Offensichtlich hat der Orden im Falle Danzigs einen kalkulierten Akt des Terrors ausgeübt und die Stadt zerstören lassen, aber kein Blutbad verursacht.
14. Jędrzej Giertych, Poland and Germany: A Reply to Congressman B. Carrol Reece of Tennessee, 1958, p. 15
15. Jędrzej Giertych, Poland and Germany: A Reply to Congressman B. Carrol Reece of Tennessee, 1958, p. 16, 95
16. James Minahan, One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000, ISBN 0313309841, p.376
17. David Abulafia et al., The New Cambridge Medieval History, 1999, Vol.5

• 1308 in Europe
• 14th-century conflicts
• History of Gdańsk
• Wars involving Poland
• Wars involving the Teutonic Knights
• History of Prussia
• History of Poland (966–1385)