Everything in Gdansk has been constantly changing for over 1000 years of its history commencing with the terrain, which was transformed from wetlands to the place where brick tenement houses, harbour cranes and magnificent temples and churches stood and culminating with nationality, which changed several times over: The Kingdom of Poland, the Duchy of Pomerania, the Duchy of Krakow, the state of the Teutonic Order, the Kingdom of Poland once again, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Kingdom of Prussia, the Free City of Gdansk (under the tutelage of the French Empire), the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire, the German Reich (called the Weimar Republic) , once again the Free City of Gdansk (this time under the protection of the League of Nations), the Third Reich, the Polish People’s Republic and the Republic of Poland! It must have been so important on the map, since it was so often the source of disputes. Pomerania and Piasts were fighting battles for Gdansk, Piasts with Brandenburg, Brandenburg with the Teutonic Knights, Teutonic Knights of the Danzigians and the Kingdom of Poland, the citizens of Gdansk and the Polish Kingdom with the Swedes, the supporters of Stanisław Leszczyński with Russia, who opposed him, the citizens of Gdansk with Prussia, Prussia with France, Poland with Nazi Germany and Hitler’s Germany with the Soviet Union. However, on the other hand, it must have been a great and attractive place, since the citizens of so many nationalities lived here and built the splendour of the city. The local population dominated here in the early Middle Ages. At the end of the Middle Ages, there was an influx of German people; however, it must be known that this does not mean there was a homogeneous group. The Germans consisted of newcomers from, among others, Lower Saxony, Westphalia, Rhineland, the Netherlands (or Lower Germany), Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Holstein, Schleswig (i.e. from the Baltic Sea), Thuringia, Hesse and Nassau (or Upper Germany), and from Silesia, the Czech Republic, Moravia and Brandenburg. The Danes, Swedes, the English and many other nationalities also lived in Gdansk.