The Free City was governed by the Senate of the Free City of Danzig, which was elected by the parliament (Volkstag) for a legislative period of four years. The official language was German,[10] the usage of Polish was guaranteed by law.[11][12] The political parties in the Free City corresponded with the political parties in Weimar Germany; the most influential parties in the 1920s were the conservative German National People's Party, the Social Democratic Party of the Free City of Danzig and the Catholic Centre Party. A Communist Party was founded in 1921 with its origins in the Spartacus League and the Communist Party of East Prussia. Several liberal parties and Free Voter's Associations existed and ran in the elections with varying success. A Polish Party represented the Polish minority and received between 3% (1933) and 6% (1920) of the vote (in total, 4,358 votes in 1933 and 9,321 votes in 1920).[13] Initially the Nazi Party had only a small amount of success (0.8% of the vote in 1927) and was even briefly dissolved.[3]
Its influence grew with the onset of difficult economic times and the increasing popularity of the Nazi Party in Germany proper. Albert Forster became the Gauleiter in October 1930. The Nazis won 50 percent of votes in the Volkstag elections of 28 May 1933. They took over the Senate in June 1933, and Hermann Rauschning becoming President of the Senate of Danzig.
Rauschning was removed from his position by Forster and replaced by Arthur Greiser in November 1934.[14] He later appealed to the public not to vote for the Nazis in the 1935 elections.[3] Political opposition to the Nazis was repressed[15] and several politicians imprisoned and murdered.[16][17] The economic policy of the Nazi government, which increased the public issues for employment-creation programs,[18] and the retrenchment of financial aid by the German Government[19] led to a devaluation of more than 40 % of the Danziger Gulden.[20] The Gold reserves of the Bank of Danzig declined from 30 million Gulden in 1933 to 13 million in 1935 and the foreign asset reserve from 10 million to 250,000 Gulden.[21]
As in Germany, the Nazis introduced an "Enabling Act" and the racialist Nuremberg laws (November 1938),[22] existing parties and Unions were gradually banned. The presence of the League of Nations however still guaranteed a minimum of legal certainty. In 1935, the oppositional parties, except for the Polish Party, filed a law suit to the Danzig High Court in protest against the manipulation of the Volkstag elections.[3][14] The opposition also protested to the League of Nations, as did the Jewish Community of Danzig.[23][24]
The anti-Jewish riots of the Kristallnacht of 9/10 November 1938 in Germany were repeated by similar riots on 12/13 November.[14][25] The Danzig Great Synagogue was taken over and demolished by the local authorities in 1939.