Vistula Germans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vistula Germans (German: Weichseldeutsche) are ethnic German and Germanized Dutch people who settled in the Vistula River watershed of central Europe.

Contents

[edit] History

German colonization of the Vistula area began in the first half of the 13th century during the Ostsiedlung, when settlers were invited by Polish and Pomeranian princes and the Teutonic Knights. The Vistula river flows south to north, to near Gdańsk (Danzig); Germans and Dutch settled its valley starting from the Baltic Sea and reaching further south with time. Through wars and the 18th century partitions of Poland, the Kingdom of Prussia acquired an increasing amount of northern, western, and central Polish territory. Eventually, Prussia acquired most of the Vistula's watershed, and the central portion of then-Poland became South Prussia and New East Prussia. Their existence was brief, from 1793 to 1806, but many Germans and Dutch established Protestant settlements there, primarily agricultural in nature. From Prussian Silesia to the southwest some German Roman Catholics entered the region as well. The 1935 "Breyer Map" shows the distribution of German settlements in what is now central Poland; marshy, flood-prone, or densely-forested areas that required their expertise to make productive were common locations for Vistula German and Dutch settlers.

Napoleon's victories in the region ended the short existence of South Prussia and New East Prussia; they and other territories were incorporated into the Duchy of Warsaw. In 1815 Greater Poland became the Grand Duchy of Posen, a Prussian client state, while Masovia to the east became part of Congress Poland within the Russian Empire. Many Germans remained in this central region, and usually maintained their middle-German Prussian dialect, similar to the Silesian German dialect, and religions.

Because of their proximity to the Imperial German-Russian border and increasing conscription, many Vistula Germans' migrations from Russian Poland. Some Polonized, however, and some of their descendants remain in the region. After World War II, those that were still Germanic were expelled from the region by the Soviet Union and the Poles.

[edit] Genealogy

Many Vistula Germans, prior to the World Wars, immigrated to North America. Many were farmers, so they logically chose to settle where good, low-cost land was available. In the United States, the plains states of Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma were popular destinations, as were the Midwestern states of Ohio and Wisconsin where many German communities already existed. In Canada, the then "Western Territories", now Alberta and British Columbia, also attracted many settlers.

Numerous Vistula Germans departed Europe via passenger steamships at Hamburg or Bremen. The Hamburg departure records, in German, are readily available. Unfortunately, most of the Bremen records were destroyed by the port's record-keepers after three years. However, arrival records to New York, Halifax, and other locations are mostly available.

Passenger ship departure and arrival lists often show these Vistula German migrants as being from "Russia", "Germany", "Prussia", "Poland", or "Austria", for example. The oft-listed village of origin is the key to determining where an ancestor came from, however. The ShtetlSeeker Web site, linked to toward the end of this article, is a helpful device for locating villages. However, due to variations in Russian, Polish, German, and English pronunciations and spellings, locating many and especially smaller villages is challenging. Surnames, as well as given names of the migrants are also often different in the various records for the same language reasons.

[edit] See also


v • d • e
German Diaspora
Africa
Asia
Europe
Eastern Europe
Americas
Oceania

[edit] External links