The city of Danzig (Gdańsk) was captured by the State of the Teutonic Order on 13 November 1308, resulting in a massacre of its inhabitants and marking the beginning of tensions between Poland and the Teutonic Order. Originally the knights moved into the fortress as an ally of Poland against the Margraviate of Brandenburg. However, after disputes over the control of the city between the Order and the King of Poland arose, the knights murdered a number of citizens within the city and took it as their own. Thus the event is also known as Gdańsk massacre or Gdańsk slaughter (rzeź Gdańska).Society and culture: Poland in Europe: studies in social and cultural history: Poland at the 18-th International Congress of Historical Sciences in Montreal, Maria Bogucka Advancement of Sciences - Education "UN-O", 1995, page 10 "Such events as the Gdańsk slaughter of 1308"The New Encyclopædia Britannica, Volumen 25 Encyclopædia Britannica, inc, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003, page 941 "The massacre the Knights perpetrated in Gdańsk in 1308 entered Polish folklore".Pomerania was taken by the Prussian Order beginning with the so called "massacre of Gdansk" on November 14, 1308.Paulus Vladimiri and his doctrine concerning international law and politics, Volume 2, Stanislaus F. Belch Mouton, 1965 "a ghastly massacre at Gdańsk in November 1308"History of Gdańsk Edmund Cieślak, Czesław Biernat, Edmund Cieślak - 1995 As well as murdering many burghers, they also killed the Pomeranian noblemen who were in Gdansk. This massacre has been recorded in legend and folk song."History of the City Gdańsk" . "the governor of the castle, Bogusza, called on the Teutonic Knights for help. Those, having captured the castle in 1308 butchered the population. Since then the event is known as 'the Gdańsk slaughter'." Though in the past a matter of debate among historians, a consensus has been established that many people were murdered and a considerable part of the town was destroyed in the context of the takeover.

In the aftermath of the takeover, the order seized all of Pomerelia (Gdańsk Pomerania) and bought up the supposed Brandenburgian claims to the region in the Treaty of Soldin (1309). The conflict with Poland was temporarily settled in the Treaty of Kalisz (1343). The town was returned to Poland in the Second Peace of Toruń in 1466.

Background In the 13th century, the Pomerelian duchy was ruled by members of the Samborides, originally stewards for the Polish Piast kings and dukes. The stewards asserted their power from fortified strongholds. The major stronghold of the area was at the location of present-day Gdańsk's Old Town. The adjacent town developed from a market place of tradesmen and was granted Lübeck city rights by Duke Swietopelk II in 1224.

Under Swietopelk II, Gdańsk became an important trading site on the lower Vistula.

The Margraviate of Brandenburg entered the scene after Mestwin II, son of Swietopolk, concluded the Treaty of Arnswalde with them, in order to receive aid against his brother, Wartislaw. The margraves took over the town in 1270/1 from Wartislaw, but did not hand it over to Mestwin until the latter was able to force them out by concluding an alliance with Boleslaw Pobozny, duke of Greater Poland. Under the rule of Brandenburg, conflicts erupted between the Slavic and German populations, which cost many lives. In the 1282 Treaty of Kępno Mestwin II promised his Pomerelian duchy to his ally Przemysł II, duke and later king of Poland, who succeeded to the duchy after Mestwin's death in 1294.

The Margraves of Brandenburg also claimed the region and had Przemysł assassinated in early 1296. Władysław I the Elbow-high (Łokietek), Przemysł's successor, was only in loose control of Pomerelia and Gdańsk with the actual control of the area being in the hands of the local Swienca family who had come into power already under Mestwin II. In 1301, one year after Wenceslaus II of Bohemia had been crowned king of Poland, the princes of Rügen, who also claimed to be the heirs of Pomerelia, mounted an expedition. Wenceslaus, who with the Polish crown had also acquired the claim to Pomerelia, called the Teutonic Order for help. The Teutonic knights occupied Gdańsk, repelled the princes of Rügen, and left the town in 1302. While the Norwegian king Haakon backed Rügen's claims, his 1302 call to the Hanseatic cities for aid remained without answer.

Wenceslaus II died in 1305 and was succeeded by Wenceslaus III, murdered in 1306. In a treaty of 8 August 1305, the margraves of Brandenburg promised to Wenceslaus III the Meissen (Miśnia) territory in exchange for Pomerelia, but that treaty was never finalized. The Teutonic Order had inherited Gniew (Mewe) from Sambor II, thus gaining a foothold on the left bank of the Vistula. Brandenburg occupied the west of the duchy after neutralizing another claimant to the area, the Cammin bishop, by burning down his see.

Rebellion of 1308 and Brandenburgian siege

Meanwhile, Władysław I the Elbow-high had reestablished his power in Poland, but was occupied in the south of his realm. He appointed Bogusza as his Pomerelian governor in Gdańsk. In the summer of 1308, a rebellion was incited by the local Swienca family allied with Waldemar of Brandenburg, resulting in a Brandenburgian intervention which unseated the forces loyal to Łokietek, who later would become King of Poland.Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland, 1979 , pg. 74 Bogusza and his men had retreated to the castle next to the town, and were besieged by the margraves.

Bogusza, on the advice of the Dominican prior Wilhelm,Poland's Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych, Dzieje miast Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej: Polska w słowie i obrazach, 1928 appealed to the Teutonic Knights in Prussia for assistance.Aleksander Gieysztor, Stefan Kieniewicz, Emanuel Rostworowski, Janusz Tazbir, and Henryk Wereszycki: History of Poland. PWN. Warsaw, 1979.

Teutonic takeover

The Knights, under the leadership of Heinrich von Plotzke, agreed to aid Bogusza, and a force of 100 knights and 200 supporters, led by Günther von Schwarzburg, arrived at the castle around August.

While historians agree that the castle as well as the adjacent town were in the hands of the Teutonic Knights by late November 1308, the number of casualties and the extent of destruction is debated. Quote: "Doch über den Ablauf der Ereignisse streiten die Historiker bis heute. Gab es bis zu 10000 oder nur 16 Tote, wurde die Stadt dem Erdboden gleichgemacht oder nur leicht zerstört, ...", Also: Quote p. 60: "The fact that the knights did indeed conquer Gdańsk is beyond doubt. The manner and circumstances in which this occurred, however, have occasioned much acrimonious controversy ... chief point of controversy has been the number of milites et nobiles who perished that night ..." Peter Oliver Loew writes that for a long time German historians accepted the version of events given by Teutonic Knights, and did not accept a high number of people murdered, with the number given between 60 and 100 victims. According to Peter Oliver Loew the exact numbers can never be established, however he agrees that all available data confirms that the city was destroyed during the conquest.

Ethnicity of the town's inhabitants

According to Peter Oliver Loew, there were German as well as Slavic inhabitants of the town. Smoliński (2021) notes that the townspeople who supported the takeover of Gdańsk in 1308 were predominantly German and adds that the townspeople and proceeding victims of the massacre and their origins and backgrounds are still in dispute among scholars. According to Hartmut Boockmann, Germans constituted the majority of the town's population. According to Śliwiński & Możejko (2017), prior to the massacre, most residents had come from the Northern German city of Lübeck. Śliwiński & Możejko (2020) add that the majority of them originally hailed from Westphalia, Lower Saxony, and the Rhineland and had previously settled in Lübeck before relocating to Gdańsk, while a minority were of Slavic (Pomeranian) origin. Loew (2024) writes that the townspeople who resisted the Teutonic Order were chiefly of German descent. According to Kazimierz Jaśinski, the Knights captured the town with the help from some of the German burghers, who constituted a very small minority within the town at the time. Note: English language edition, 1995, "History of Gdansk" According to Stefan Maria Kuczyński, the German population only achieved the majority after local Polish population was murdered and a new settlement was built by Teutonic Knights.Stefan M. Kuczyński, Bitwa pod Grunwaldem. Katowice: Śląsk 1987, page 17.

Teutonic Knights entering the town

According to Błażej Śliwiński at the time of events, Gdańsk with surrounding settlements had around 2000 to 3000 inhabitants.Setki padły pod toporem 05.12.2008 Gazeta Wyborcza Trójmiasto The forces of the order had arrived in two columns: one re-inforced the Polish garrison in the castle, the other one marched against the town from the south and raised a siege. In the castle, conflict arose between the Teutonic and Polish knights, with the latter opposing a takeover by the former. After several encounters, the outnumbered Polish forces left the castle, with some of them defecting to the rebellious inhabitants of the town and the Brandenburgers. In the evening of 12 November 1308, the Teutonic Knights succeeded in forcing their way inside the town. During the ensuing close combat in the streets, the Teutonic Knights gained the upper hand over the defending Brandenburgian forces, burghers and Pomerelian knights. The victorious knights killed many citizens and opposing knights. By the morning of 13 November, the defendants were utterly defeated, bodies were lying in the streets and executions were going on.

According to Halina Wątróbska, half of the town was promised to the Teutonic Order in return for aiding Bogusza's men. The Teutonic Knights then moved in, defeated the Brandenburgers and had the townspeople accept Łokietek as their suzerain. However, on 13 November they "took over the whole town, thereby killing everyone who defied their will."

Udo Arnold says that a dispute between the castle's garrison and the Teutonic knights arose when the Brandenburgers were about to leave. While the dispute was about the co-ordination of further action and unsettled payment, Arnold says that it was at the same time that "the order's policy changed from providing aid towards annexing Pomerelia and buying up existing legal claims," which was opposed by the population of Danzig. This was answered by the order on 13 November "by the uncompromising levelling of the greater part of the town." Quote: "Die polnische Seite wandte sich an den Deutschen Orden um Hilfe. Der ging bereitwillig, wie schon in der Vergangenheit, darauf ein. Kaum aber stand der Rückzug der Brandenburger bevor, entbrannte heftiger Streit mit der Danziger Burgbesatzung über die weitere Vorgehensweise. Auch die Kosten der gesamten Expedition waren ungeklärt. Aus den Verbündeten von einst wurden Gegner, bei der preußischen Führung wuchs die Neigung, das gesamte Herzogtum dem Ordensstaat einzuverleiben und bestehende Rechtsansprüche. Den Widerstand der Stadt Danzig beantworteten die Ordenstruppen am 13. November 1308 mit der rücksichtslosen Niederlegung weiter Stadtgebiete."