"Call of the Toad Call of the Toad is a film released in 2005 that tells the love story between a German man and a Polish woman who become caught up in the advent of modern capitalism in Poland. It is based on the novel ""The Call of the Toad"" written by Günter Grass. In Gdańsk, Poland, in 1989, Alexander Reschke and Alexandra Piatkowska first meet on their way to a cemetery. Both are survivors from the end of World War II when many people from Poland and Germany were displaced as borders were re-drawn according to new treaties. But"
"Gdańsk Bay Gdansk Bay or the Bay of Gdansk ; ; , and ) is a southeastern bay of the Baltic Sea. It is named after the adjacent port city of Gdańsk in Poland and is sometimes referred to as the Gulf of Gdańsk. The western part of Gdańsk Bay is formed by the shallow waters of the Bay of Puck. The southeastern part is the Vistula Lagoon, separated by the Vistula Spit and connected to the open sea by the Strait of Baltiysk. The bay is enclosed by a large curve of the shores of Gdańsk Pomerania in Poland"
"the Danzigers and with large foreign investments, Poland began building a large military port in Gdynia, just away from Danzig. Unlike Danzig, Gdynia was in the direct possession of Poland and soon became the so-called ""Polish outside window"". Due to a German-Polish customs war between 1925 and 1934, Poland became focused on international trade; for example, a new railway line was built to connect Silesia with the coast and the new tariffs made it cheaper to send goods through Polish ports rather than German ones. Gdynia became the biggest port on the Baltic sea. Nevertheless, Poland resorted to economic sanctions"
"Polish Corridor The Polish Corridor (; ), also known as Danzig Corridor, Corridor to the Sea or Gdańsk Corridor, was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia (Pomeranian Voivodeship, eastern Pomerania, formerly part of West Prussia), which provided the Second Republic of Poland (1920–1939) with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Germany (Weimar Republic) from the province of East Prussia. The Free City of Danzig (now the Polish city of Gdańsk) was separate from both Poland and Germany. A similar territory, also occasionally referred to as a corridor, had been connected to the Polish Crown"
"Polish Pomerania, Nazi diplomacy – as part of their initial attempts to subordinate Poland into Anti-Comintern Pact – aimed at incorporation of the Free City of Danzig into the Third Reich and an extra-territorial transit route through Polish territory, which was rejected by the Polish government, that feared economic blackmail by Nazi Germany, and reduction to puppet status. The name ""Pomerania"" comes from Slavic po more, which means Land at the Sea. It is known in German as Pommern. In 1939, the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland engaging in series of massacres against the civilian population, the most notable among them"
"Gdańsk Bay by the Strait of Baltiysk. The Poland–Russia border runs across the lagoon. Localities on the lagoon include Kaliningrad, Baltiysk, and Primorsk in Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast and Elbląg, Tolkmicko, Frombork, Krynica Morska in Poland. The Polish port of Elbląg used to see a substantial amount of trading traffic on the lagoon, but that has declined owing to the current border situation. Kaliningrad and Baltiysk are currently major seaports on the lagoon. The earliest version of the name of Vistula Lagoon has been recorded in historical sources by Wulfstan, an Anglo-Saxon sailor and merchant at the end of the 9th"
"granaries. Most river shipping traveled north, with southward transport being less profitable, and barges and rafts often being sold off in Gdańsk for lumber. In order to arrest recurrent flooding on the lower Vistula, the Prussian government in 1889–95 constructed an artificial channel about east of Gdańsk (German name: ""Danzig"")—known as the Vistula Cut (German: ""Weichseldurchstich""; Polish: ""Przekop Wisły"")—that acted as a huge sluice, diverting much of the Vistula flow directly into the Baltic. As a result, the historic Vistula channel through Gdańsk lost much of its flow and was known thereafter as the Dead Vistula (German: ""Tote Weichsel""; Polish:"
"clarified. In December 1945 the Soviet Consulate explained the existing ""anti-Soviet feelings"" with some ""excesses"" of the Red Army. In June 1945 124,000 Germans and 8,000 Poles lived in the city, from 1945 to 1950 most Germans were expelled. With the German defeat the planned genocide of the Polish population, who were deemed by the German authorities to be ""subhuman,"" was averted and Poles returned to Gdańsk. Already before the end of World War II, the Yalta Conference had agreed to place the city, under Polish name Gdańsk, under ""de facto"" administration of Poland, and this decision was confirmed at"
"Gdynia or for Constanca in Romania. The Polish Navy was organized into a Warsaw-based Naval Command, subordinate to the Commander in Chief of the Polish forces, and several naval and riverine bases and flotillas. The navy was commanded by Counter Admiral Józef Unrug and his Chief of Naval Staff Jerzy Świrski. Apart from its own bases, the navy also commanded the Westerplatte Transit Wharf, an extraterritorial base and depot in the Free City of Danzig, commanded by Henryk Sucharski and Franciszek Dąbrowski. The naval bases included: The navy itself was divided onto four flotillas: Finally, under the influence of French"
"Polish Navy was founded at the end of World War I in 1918 with some French and British involvement. Puck was the only Polish harbour until Gdynia was built in the 1920s and served as the main harbour of the Polish Navy until the Second World War. Puck was bombed by Nazi Germany at 5.20am Polish time on Friday September 1, known thereafter as Grey Friday. A Luftwaffe bomber dropped a single projectile on the town, which also had an airbase. After Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1939, a branch of the Stutthof concentration camp existed in Puck"
"Following the outbreak of World War II and the German takeover of Danzig, the shipyard was taken over by Nazi authorities, initially informally, and officially on 30 August 1940. The new company, this time officially known as ""Danziger Werft AG"" concentrated its activities on the construction of the Type VII U-boats for the Kriegsmarine. After World War II the Danziger Werft, which was considerably damaged by bombing raids, was mostly dismantled by the Soviet Union. Eventually the shipyard was taken over by Polish government and merged with the nearby Schichau-Werke shipyard under the name of ""Stocznia Gdańska"". Since 1990 named"
"into the Free City of Danzig. Thus, despite retaining some rights and limited sovereignty over the city, Poland had no port of her own - nor any shipyards. To ensure its foreign trade and shipping were independent the port of Gdynia was built, mainly due to the efforts of Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, along with several shipyards serving both the Polish Navy and the merchant marine. Simultaneously, various Polish universities started to teach a cadre of future naval engineers. Among them was Henryk Giełdzik, a young engineer and a graduate of the Danzig university of technology. Within a relatively short time of"
"Danzig was in a customs union with Poland and was located between German East Prussia and the so-called Polish Corridor. Gdańsk lies at the mouth of the Motława River, connected to the Leniwka, a branch in the delta of the nearby Vistula River, which drains 60 percent of Poland and connects Gdańsk with the Polish capital, Warsaw. Together with the nearby port of Gdynia, Gdańsk is also a notable industrial center. In the late Middle Ages it was an important seaport and shipbuilding town and, in the 14th and 15th centuries, a member of the Hanseatic League. In the interwar"
"owned German shipyards at that time. With end of World War I the shipyard was closed but soon after opened again under different names and with different owners. Merged with the former Schichau-Werft Danzig, it belongs to Poland today, named ""Stocznia Gdańsk Spółka Akcyjna"" resp. in German ""Werft Danzig AG"" (since 1990). Kaiserliche Werft Danzig Kaiserliche Werft Danzig was a German shipbuilding company founded in 1852 as ""Königliche Werft Danzig"" and renamed ""Kaiserliche Werft"" after the proclamation of the German Empire in 1871. Together with Kaiserliche Werft Kiel and Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven it was one of three shipyards responsible for"
"new seaport at Gdynia (Gdingen) in the territory of the Corridor. A large part of the German population of the Polish Corridor left the area after its cession to the Second Polish Republic in June 1919. Poland took over complete control on January 20, 1920. Those people who wanted to stay in their hometowns had to take Polish citizenship, as Poland refused to accept German citizens living in its territory. Former public officials were not accepted as Polish citizens and had to leave the area. Other people, declining to give up German citizenship, had also to leave the Corridor. Due"
"by the Soviets and assigned to Polish Gdańsk Voivodeship, who again renamed it Gdynia. In the Polish 1970 protests, worker demonstrations took place at Gdynia Shipyard. Workers were fired upon by the police. The fallen (e.g. Brunon Drywa) became symbolized by a fictitious worker Janek Wiśniewski, commemorated in a song by Mieczysław Cholewa, ""Pieśń o Janku z Gdyni"". One of Gdynia's important streets is named after Janek Wiśniewski. The same person was portrayed by Andrzej Wajda in his movie ""Man of Iron"" as Mateusz Birkut. On December 4, 1999, a storm destroyed a huge crane in a shipyard, which was"
"of Pomerania with around 140 km of coastline including the Hel Peninsula, and 69 km without it. The primarily German-speaking seaport of Danzig (Gdańsk), controlling the estuary of the main Polish waterway, the Vistula river, became the Free City of Danzig and was placed under the protection of the League of Nations without a plebiscite. After the dock workers of Danzig harbour went on strike at a critical moment during the Polish–Soviet War, refusing to unload ammunition, the Polish Government decided to build a new seaport at Gdynia in the territory of the Corridor, and connected this seaport to the"
"Polish Post Office (Danzig) The Polish Post Office (""Poczta Polska"") in the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk) was created in 1920 and operated until the German invasion of Poland that marked the beginning of World War II. The post was established in Danzig (Gdańsk) under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, and its buildings were considered extraterritorial Polish property. The Polish Post Office in Danzig comprised several buildings, originally built as a German military hospital. In 1930 the ""Gdańsk 1"" building on ""Hevelius Platz"" (square) in the ""Danziger Altstadt"" (Old Town) became the primary Polish post office, with a"
"western parts of Greater Poland remained in Germany, where they formed much of the province of Posen-West Prussia (1922–1938), whose capital was Schneidemühl (Piła). Following the German invasion of 1939, Greater Poland was incorporated into Nazi Germany, becoming the province called Reichsgau Posen, later Reichsgau Wartheland (""Warthe"" being the German name for the Warta river). The Polish and Jewish population was classified by Nazis as subhuman and subjected to organized genocide, involving mass murder and ethnic cleansing, with many former officials and others considered potential enemies by the Nazis being imprisoned or executed, including at the notorious Fort VII concentration"
"forces landed near Puck—the main port of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth fleet—and captured it. The major city of Gdańsk, however, refused to surrender even in the face of lightning Swedish advances. In a battle that took place between 22 and 30 September 1626 near the village of Gniew, Gustavus defeated a Polish army led by King Sigismund, who retreated and called for reinforcements from other parts of the country. In response, Koniecpolski was tasked with defending Royal Prussia against the Swedish incursion. He was delayed by the unstable situation in the south, though, and it was not until 1 October that"
"German advances elsewhere, and is still regarded as a symbol of resistance in modern Poland. Westerplatte is a peninsula in the Bay of Gdańsk. Following the reestablishment of Polish independence after World War I, much of the surrounding region became part of Poland. However, the city of Danzig (present-day Gdańsk, Poland), historically an important port city, became an independent city-state, the Free City of Danzig. The Free City was nominally supervised by the League of Nations but, over time, Danzig became increasingly allied with Germany, reflecting its predominantly ethnic German population. In 1921, in the wake of the Polish-Soviet War,"
"by Prussia during the Second Partition of Poland in 1793 and subsequently lost its importance as a trading port. Briefly becoming a free city during Napoleonic wars, it was again Prussian after Napoleon's defeat, and later became part of the newly created German Empire. After World War I the Free City of Danzig was created, a city-state under the supervision of the League of Nations. The German attack on the Polish military depot at Westerplatte marks the start of World War II and the city was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1939. After World War II the city became part"
"Danzig (Gdańsk) and Stettin (Szczecin); it simultaneously became a popular health resort, mainly due to the exceptional climate. Prior to World War II, Rügenwalde (Darłowo) was part of Germany and was the site of a highly guarded military base. It was here that the largest artillery piece in the world, Schwerer Gustav, was constructed and tested. In 1945 the undamaged city was incorporated into Polish territory, while its former German residents were forcibly expelled. It was at first renamed to Dyrłów, in reminiscence to the medieval castle, before getting the current Polish name Darłowo. The original medieval outline of Darłowo,"
"was a mere from Gdańsk and its fall to the king cut the city off by land. The king then left the army under command of hetman Jan Zborowski, ordering a blockade to isolate the city by sea as well, with Polish privateers fighting both the Gdańsk and Danish fleets. The winter reduced military action to minor skirmishing and the spring thaw halted all military engagements, but during this lull, the city magnates hired the German mercenary captain Hans Winckelbruch von Kölln, who, in April, marched out to engage the Polish army at Lubieszów, near Tczew. The Polish army consisted"
"commanded by hetman Koniecpolski, numbered under 15,000. In the summer of 1627 Koniecpolski decided to advance to the major port of the Pomerania, Danzig (Gdańsk). Both Koniecpolski and Gustav II Adolf desired a major battle. Koniecpolski needed to reduce the Swedes' strength, as their current numerical superiority made it difficult for his army to contain them; Gustav II Adolf meanwhile heard rumors of possible reinforcements for Koniecpolski arriving, and wanted to defeat him before his numerical superiority withered. The Polish army numbered 7,800, including 2,500 hussars and reiters, 2,000 Cossack light cavalry, 3,000 infantry (including 2,000 German mercenaries), and 300"
"of the raid, Polish Fleet lost almost half of its units. In late August 1571, Danish ships again appeared in the Gdańsk Bay. This time Poles had been warned in advance, and all Polish units had left Puck, sailing to the city port of Gdańsk, where they found protection. For two weeks Danish Fleet blocked Gdańsk, demanding that all Polish ships be handed to them. Gdańsk authorities refused to do so, and to punish the city, Danes stopped in the Øresund as many as 34 boats which headed for Gdańsk. Danish victory proved that Polish privateers, although experienced enough to"
"formed much of the province of Posen-West Prussia (1922–1938), whose capital was Schneidemühl (Piła). Following the German invasion of 1939, Greater Poland was incorporated into Nazi Germany, becoming the province called Reichsgau Posen, later Reichsgau Wartheland (""Warthe"" being the German name for the Warta river). The Polish population was oppressed, with many former officials and others considered potential enemies by the Nazis being imprisoned or executed, including at the notorious Fort VII concentration camp in Poznań. Poznań was declared a stronghold city ""(Festung)"" in the closing stages of the war, being taken by the Red Army in the Battle of"
"of Gdynia, after crossing all of Poland from south to north (appr. 550 kilometers). In 1921–1922 the borders of the Second Polish Republic were finally established. Upper Silesia was divided (see: Silesian Uprisings) and the boundary left in German hands several crucial junctions, including Kluczbork (Kreuzburg) and Fosowskie (Vossowska). Without these centers, rail communication between Polish Silesia and the Baltic Sea was virtually impossible. As coal was one of main Polish exports, and transit through Germany was not allowed (due to the German–Polish customs war in the late 1920s and early 1930s), construction of the new line was necessary. On"
"the Gdańsk Bay. The Polish flotilla, which included the destroyer and two gunboats, was attacked by a large formation of German bombers. ""Rybitwa""s sister ship, , was hit. Despite the great risk involved, the captain of ""Rybitwa"", Miładowski, made the decision to tow ""Mewa"" into port; the operation was a success. In the next few weeks, the ship was based at the port of Jastarnia and conducted patrols and mine laying operations at night, while defending the Hel peninsula during the day. On 19 September, ""Rybitwa"" was damaged by bombs while still in port - most of the crew were"
"as Germans who had been unjustly taken out of Germany. The loss of Danzig did indeed deeply hurt German national pride and in the interwar period, German nationalists spoke of the ""open wound in the east"" that was the Free City of Danzig. However, until the building of Gdynia, almost all of Poland's exports went through Danzig, and Polish public opinion was opposed to Germany having a ""choke-hold"" on the Polish economy. The interwar Free City of Danzig (1920–39) included the city of Danzig (Gdańsk), the towns of Zoppot (Sopot), Oliva (Oliwa), Tiegenhof (Nowy Dwór Gdański), Neuteich (Nowy Staw) and"
"are deposits of potassium salt below the Bay of Puck. The main ports are Puck, Jastarnia, and Hel. Bay of Puck The Bay of Puck or Puck Bay (, ), is a shallow western branch of the Bay of Gdańsk in the southern Baltic Sea, off the shores of Gdańsk Pomerania, Poland. It is separated from the open sea by the Hel Peninsula. The bay has an average depth of to . There is a shallow sand-bank from Rewa to Kuźnica in the middle of Hel Peninsula. The bay, historically also known as the ""Bay of Putzig"" (; ), is"
"of Wały Jagiellońskie and Długa Streets. Also, the new market places, such as Targ Drzewny, Targ Sienny, Targ Węglowy, Targ Wąchany or Targ Rybny were created. Their names were closely related to the goods, which were sold on each market and in the case of Długi Targ the name was derived from its shape. Around 400 ships sailed to Port of Gdańsk for the August fair and the transactions were held in many languages. It was possible to buy famous Toruń gingerbreads, Kashubian ceramics, Czech glass, Eastern furs and carpets, English cloth, gypsy pots, Goldwasser (type of vodka) and amber."
"Sea coast. Duchy of Prussia was compensated by its losses (occupation of some cities by Swedes) by Commonwealth, with the temporary (until 1634) transfer of Malbork, Sztum and Żuławy Wiślane. Remaining ships of the Commonwealth fleet were transferred to Sweden. The Swedes only failure was their inability to capture the important port of Gdańsk. Gustav Adolf's biographer, Harte, noted that the king was furious """"that a pacific commercial rabble should beat a set of illustrious fellows, who made fighting their profession"""". Nonetheless, Swedes now controlled almost all Baltic ports, with the exception of Danzig, Puck, Königsberg (Królewiec) and Liepāja (Libau,"