Swedish diplomat in Danzig

1936 Danzig consular (!) passport used for the Mandate.

 

Another fascinating pre-war travel document being used by a Jewish teenager to leave her home and family to find a safer and better place to live. Today, with the facts all clear about the events that unfolded during the war, we can say without any shadow of a doubt that she was very lucky, and her decision, or most likely her family’s decision to send her abroad saved her life.

 

The document, on its own is a superb rare example when it comes to travel documents being issued, meaning, the TYPE of the document is exceptional and also the LOCATION it was issued at, being a consular issue is a first-timer for me indeed, and was very excited when I saw it.

 

The article will focus, briefly on one subject, which is the issuer of a visa located inside this passport, a Swedish diplomat who endorsed the passport from his country’s consulate in the Free City of Danzig.

 

The city was a post-WWI entity that was erected following the Treaty of Versailles from 1919, and specifically as stated inside it clearly indicates that this semi-autonomous region would be separated from the Weimar Republic and the newly established Second Polish Republic. The “state-within-a-state” like city existed for about 19 years and became part of the Third Reich following the German Invasion of Poland on September 1^st 1939, the outbreak of World War II. The city would be then part of Germany and incorporated into a newly formed region known as Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia.

 

Before the war Sweden sent one of it’s diplomats to the city, consul Torsten Johan Fredrik Bergendahl, who would return to it after the war again, but this time to the Polish city of Gdańsk in 1946, and remain there for a couple of years. It is during this time that his duties would spark some controversy since it was alleged, in some cases, that he assisted or turned a blind eye to the evacuation of political refugees to Sweden by the assistance of Swedish vessels at port and some allegations of direct intervention by him on this matter: he was even “credited” for the fleeing out of Poland of Polish politician Stefan Korboński.

 

Here are some brief points regarding this diplomat:

 

• Born in 1890 – 1962;
• 1917-18 at the Swedish delegation in Petrograd;
• 1919-21 at Consulate General in London;
• 1924-25 clerical duties at the legation in Warsaw;
• 1936-38 consul at the Free City of Danzig;
• 1939-42 vice-consul at the Polish legation in Moscow then Kuybyshev;
• 1946-48 returning back to Poland, Gdańsk, as consul again.

 

Have added an image of this pre-war visa.

 

 

 

Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.