HISTORY OF THE "POTATO GERMANS"
As I mentioned earlier I find it very interesting to see how all our populations are mixed together over the centuries. In Europe it always happened – all the way back to the Cimbrians a hundred years BC, even before. And later on after the fall of the Roman empire in the 5th century. Lots of long-lasting wars and the subsequent misery and famines made millions of people move to new places to try to start a new and better life.
This is also the background for my brief story today. Following the for everybody disastrous Thirty Years War ( 1618-48 ) many areas in Central Europe ( where the war took place ) were almost inhabitable. So, the Danish king Frederik V (1723-66) decided to take action. Denmark had lost big areas of its land in wars with Sweden. So, he wanted to make the huge parts of Jutland, which was still heaths, into farmland to replace the lost parts of the kingdom.
Therefore, he asked the Danish envoy in Frankfurt in Germany to put advertisements into German newspapers and invite Germans to come to settle in Denmark. They were promised a lot of privileges such no taxes, freedom of religion, no military service – and not least farms with land, animals and equipment. Altogether 965 persons ( 265 families ) accepted the offer. They came from southern parts of Germany ( Pfaltz and Hessen ). That was where the newspapers with the advertisements were published.
When they arrived to Denmark their disappointment was second to none. The heaths were unpleasant areas with no infrastructure at all. The Germans had no idea what it was and what to do with it. They did not know – but found out in the hard way! – that heather which was growing all over the place created a very, very solid and almost impenetrable layer just under the surface. A layer, which requires good equipment ( plows, pickaxes, etc. ) and a lot of hard work to penetrate. Furthermore, most of the arriving Germans were not farmers. They were mostly craftsmen and former soldiers.
The result was that most of them left again. And where did they go? All the way to Russia! The German-born Russian zarina, Catherine II, had around the same time invited European, though not Jews, to come to Russia to help her cultivate the huge areas east of the Volga river. More than a million Germans came. They were later called Volga-Germans. They settled in the area near the city of Saratov ( which we visited some years ago ). Most of the “Danish” Germans went all the way there. It was more than 3,300 km by foot and with carriages and equipment. Quite an accomplishment.
Centuries later these Volga Germans were sent to Kazachstan and Sibiria by Stalin, when the Nazis invaded Russia in 1941. Many have later emigrated to Germany and America. But there are still about 600.000 ethnic Germans in Russia and Kazachstan.
Back to Denmark: 59 families stayed and worked very hard on cultivating the heath. They were and are called “potato Germans”. Why? Because they knew from back home that the yield from potatos were three times better than from grain farming. And also because the soil in heath areas is very good for growing potatos.
You still have a lot of descendants from these Germans in Denmark. German surnames like Bitsch, Frank, Öhlenschläger, Marquart, Ganzhorn, Roth, Würtz, Krath, Meyer and Wacker are frequent, especially in the area, where the immigrants arrived to.
You can find a small museum in Grønhøj in the area. And you can also read more in English about this important part of Danish and European history by looking up: POTATO GERMANS on Google.
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