Senate of the Free City of Danzig

A portrait of Heinrich Sahm

After the establishment of the Free City of Danzig on November 15th, 1920, the Constituent Assembly elected the members of the first senate on December 6th. It was a bourgeois coalition between the DNVP, the DPP and the liberal Free Economic Association. The Social Democrats were the main opposition. The head of the government was Heinrich Sahm, the former mayor, who did not belong to any party. There were 4 DNVP, 4 DDP and 5 liberals in the Senate. At the second Volkstag election on November 18th, 1923, the coalition continued. The First Sahm Senate continued until December 10th, until it was replaced by the Second Sahm Senate. The honorary members of the First Sahm Senate, including the Deputy President, resigned in January 15th, 1924.

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Julius Gehl, local SPD leader

The rejection of the state budget of 1925 by Deputy President Ernst Ziehm led to a crisis in the government. A new senate was formed on August 19th, 1925. 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))[5]. This government was tolerated by the Poles and socialist politician Wilhelm Rahn.

In the third Volkstag election on November 13th, 1927, there was a further political shift towards the SPD. The parties of the previous minority government now had a majority. Without prejudice for some changes in senators, the SPD, Zentrum, and the Liberals continued to dominate the senate.

The coalition collapsed in 1930, divided over the question of housing management and financing laws. On March 29th, the Liberals left the coalition, with the SPD following suit on April 2nd. In May 1930, Heinrich Sahm's attempt to form a bourgeois senate failed. 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. This Senate remained in office until January 9th, 1931.

A portrait of Ernst Ziehm

In the fourth Volkstag election on November 16, 1930, neither the left or the bourgeois parties had received majorities. The NSDAP, which had received 12 seats, tipped the scales. On January 10, 1931, a new senate was formed under Ernst Ziem, with its members being parts of the DNVP, Zentrum, and the Liberals. The Nazis tolerated this senate, even though they were prone to extreme political conflict with them.. However, in the autumn of 1931, the NSDAP discussed the possible fall and forceful removal of the Ziehm Senate, decided against by Adolf Hitler. Towards the end of 1932, Hitler changed his mind and started planning to remove the Ziehm Senate. With his appointment as Chancellor in January 1933, it was time for the NSDAP to come into power in Danzig. They deprived the Senate of confidence in Ziehm and offered to enter into a joint senate with the bourgeois parties if Hermann Rauschning became Senate President and the NSDAP appointed the Interior Senator. The bourgeois parties rejected this proposition and the Senate resigned, remaining in office until June 20, 1933[6].

This Senate was known for increasing authoritarianism in Danzig, even banning the social democratic newspaper Volkstimme for a short time in 1932[7]. By 1932, the Nazis had tapped into the electoral power of the rural population of Danzig, and had become the second most popular party.

A portrait of Hermann Rauschning

In the fifth Volkstag election on May 28th, 1933, the NSDAP gained an absolute majority. On June 20th, 1933, a senate under prominent Danzig Nazi Hermann Rauschning was elected, with only Nazis aside from two Zentrum senators. The Volkstag voted to adopt the Enabling Act, allowing the Senate to use emergency decrees without the approval of the Volkstag.