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Die Pommerschen Leute
(German-Pomeranian Newsletter)
- Pomeranian History -
© copyright 1998 by Myron Grunewald and John Movius; all
rights reserved
Latest Update: 9 September 2002
POMERANIAN HISTORY
by
the late Myron Gruenwald
founder of die Pommerschen Leute
The MIGRATION which is the primary concern of this
association is the CHAIN MIGRATION set off by the OLD LUTHERANS.
These "Alt Lutherische" were determined to leave their homeland
after King Friedrich Wilhelm III (1797-1840) issued the
Proclamation of Union between the Lutheran and the Reformed
churches of Prussia. He and the Junkers, the land owners and
aristocracy of Prussia, were Reformed, and a majority of the
peasants were Lutheran. He reasoned that he could write one
service that would please both factions. When on April 4 of 1830
he authorized to the states full power to enforce the new
liturgy, the people were at first confused (because the
Catholics, Jews, and Mennonites of Prussia were tolerated) and
then angry. The Lutherans were forced by gun point to break up
their own churches and attend the "Union" churches.
The idea of the emigration did not originate with the
Pomeranians, but rather by the people of Brandenburg to the
southwest; but by 1837 it had the greatest number who were
willing to migrate. Observers had been sent to the United States
to find conditions most like the Baltic lands that they knew.
These were to be Buffalo, NY, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as stated
elsewhere in these pages.
In November of 1838, the first five ships left Prussia. The
people landed at New York harbor, then took the
Erie Canal up to Buffalo. In 1839 another flotilla of 5 ships
arrived at Buffalo, but this time some 40 families
chose not to remain there but moved on through the Great Lakes to
Milwaukee. They set up a colony called
Freistadt - just to the north. A third, and final, complete
flotilla arrived in 1843. For the first years, up to
about 1855, the greatest amount of migration was from the push
for these religious reasons.
By that time the economic conditions (and their great difference
reported by friends, family, and neighbors in
America) represented both a push from the Baltic and a mighty
pull from America and elsewhere. The
migration pattern actually formed a chain that can be followed by
their settlement patterns today. This was
from Buffalo, jumping on to Milwaukee, and spreading out first
through the state of Wisconsin.
As the best lands were filled up and the forests well occupied by
these Baltic Teutons; they extended their
migration to Minnesota and Iowa. Always in a direct link of
advice and assistance from those who had gone
before (die Vorfahren), They then followed along the chain and
moved forward. As Minnesota and Iowa began
to fill, and others had gone into the western shore of Michigan
and farther down to Chicago, Illinois; the chain
took the people into Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota.
One must recognize that by this time, the
glacial topography had changed, but the persistent pioneering
spirit of the Baltic Teutons urged them
forward.
The GLACIAL geography, history, and topology of the Prussian
Baltic region and the area around Buffalo,
New York and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were, for all practical
purposes, identical. Both regions had been
affected by the same four glacial periods. (See Two
Worlds for their identification.)
The Great Lakes themselves are the same shallow, dangerous
glacial lakes as is the Baltic Sea (Ostsee). The
Baltic had the sand dunes and escarpments at its southern shore.
This was true of Buffalo, also, but in the case
of Wisconsin, it was the eastern shore of Wisconsin and southern
shores at Indiana that had the sand dunes and
fine beaches.
The end of the glacial push in each case was composed of
depressions called "kettles" and small hills of
deposited material called "kames". Both areas have the long
narrow "drumlins" of deposited glacial material
along former fissures of ice, that were then smoothed over with
the next glacier. The temptingly smooth land
mass is loaded with small (and some terribly large) rocks - all
of which had to be cleared from the land in order
to be planted.
There are large areas of small lakes dotted across many miles and
intertwining rivers, marshes, and swamps that
either had to be cleared, as in the case of Pommern, planted with
swamp hay, or turned into recreational parks,
as in Wisconsin. But this was the land the Baltic Germans knew
how to cultivate! The seemingly endless
woods that had to be cleared and the great forests that were
turned into wood products were a welcome sight.
Were they discouraged by the task before them? No! This was the
land they knew and loved and could
cultivate and produce on.
BALTIC TEUTONS is what the name of these people became
over my years of
study and writing. From the name, "die Pommerschen Leute
(Loyte, as pronounced)" one can see
that it all started with the people of this one province.
As ancestral data came in and other history books were written,
it was found that the history of these people
was quite similar (a matter of the eastern expansion of the
Teutonic Knights into what would be called Prussia)
and the migration was almost identical. They were coming over in
the same time period, often on the same
boats, for the same purposes. They joined the same churches and
married each other.
The name was extended to Baltic Germans. By the last book, the
extension of these people out of the glacial
areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota into the lands further west, it
was evident that there were also the Lutheran
Scandinavian migrants of the Baltic region who were part of this
same expansion. Previous books and articles
had explored the Teutonic history evident in the Scanadinavians,
the Germans, the English, the Normans of
France as being parts of the Teutonic tribes (differentiated from
the Celts of the earliest migration period into
Europe and the Slavs of the period later than the Teutons).
Therefore, the more inclusive term applied to the
immigration. and they became Baltic Teutons.
The BORDERS of central Europe have always had an ebb and a flow
of their own based on
the migrations of the people. There was the difference of the
early "claims" of what constituted Poland in 966,
and the reality of settlement by the Poles and the Germans.
Thus, too, at the eastern Polish border between
Poland and the Soviet people. Sections of Pommern (Vorpommern
from Stettin and west of the Oder River)
were awarded to Sweden following the Thirty Years' War in 1648
which they held in various sizes until after
the Napoleonic period in 1815.
The Teutonic Knights were changing the relationship of
Germany/Prussia along the Baltic
lands - all the way over to Koenigsberg. The Germans were
invited into the Silesian lands as farmers, miners,
businessmen, traders, and a settlement and governing expertise.
This same thing was happening in what was to
be the Sudetenland between Germany and the present Czech Republic
as Bohemia. This land provided the Holy
Roman Emperor, Karl IV, in 1400. He then also took Silesia for
Bohemia (of which he was king) and for the
Holy Roman Empire (in actuality still the 1st Reich of Karl the
Great's (Charlemagne's) Germany).
Then from 1773 until 1918 Poland dissappeared as a nation on the
map entirely - distributed among Austria,
Russia, and Prussia. This encouraged the book By the Content
of Their Character
when I asked the question, "Were there any Poles born when there
was no Poland?" This was an historical
corollary to the question, "Are there any Pomeranians being born
when there is no Pommern that exists for
Germany?" (The answer was yes, in both cases.)
This brings us to ATTRIBUTES AND CHARACTERISTICS. This
topic was covered most
extensively in the book By the Content of Their Character.
This book goes through the
development in general of characteristics in any given culture,
from both the nature of birth (those valued
physical characteristics decided by a people) and nurture (those
desired attributes determined to be carried on by
the culture of the society). After going through this
acquirement in these two manners, the book explores the
specific characteristics of Germans and even further to the
sub-group of Pomeranians (as contrasted, say, with
Bavarian or Bohemian southern Germans).
Another book that looks in depth at the acquirement of these
traits is Pomeranians; the Persistent
Pioneers. In this book the trait of being the "persistent
pioneer" is not treated as a chosen characteristic
or a determined attribute, but rather as a form of making an
uncon-scious series of decisions over an historical
length of time. What it presents is the series of conscious
choices that members of the larger group made such
that it pealed off the more adventuous from the gene-pool.
It follows (along with its companion tale, Baltic Teutons;
Pioneers of America's Frontier, five sieves
whereby each time a certain section of the population made a
choice. The previous book, By the Content
. . . , finished with an examination of the place the German
people, particularly the Pomeranian persistent
pioneers, would/should/could have in a multicultural America.
It is from these concerns, the place of us in America's culture
and success, that the entire set
of essays (topics based on the author's opinion) is presented as
in the book, Don't Confuse Me With That
Other Person. Some few of these essays were taken from
previous newsletters; most of them were
orignal for the book; and essays continue to be developed in the
newsletter on this vital subject. Somewhere
along the line we must decide "What is an American?" and "How can
we best achieve this for our wildly
differentiated society at this time?"
LUTHERANS and CATHOLICS, their churches and peoples,
present a major division of the
German people, and their characteristics, and the German nation.
We have already seen in the section
on migration what an important part the Lutheran church played
with this entire 19th century movement of
peoples.
In my works the first reference to the northern part of Germany
becoming Lutheran
(Protestant) is in the book One Cubit of Stature, where
the Order of Teutonic Knights takes
immediate advantage of the results of the Thirty Years' War and
shifts from the Catholic Order of crusading
knights (in which they had served in Palestine until the last
crusade proved so disasterous - and then transfered
their headquarters to the eastern Baltic front where they were
conducting crusades against the indigenous Baltic
tribes) to become the leading Protestant advocates.
Luther's leadership into the Protestant movement allowed them to
remove themselves from the vows with the
Papacy, become Lutherans, help to spread the Protestant word,
and, incidentally, become the Junkers of
Prussia. The most detailed look at the relationship of the
Protestant church to the Catholic church is in the
books Odin's Inheritors; the Essays. What is compared and
contrasted in these two volumes is the
difference between Christianity formed and interpreted based on
the Mediterranean legends of the people before
Christianity came to them and the Christianity formed and
interpreted upon the northern myths of the people of
the Teutonic lands before Christianity came to them.
The ANCESTRAL DATA and its concommitant INDEXES are the
crux of the research benefits to
our members. The member gets all the history and philosophy of
their people in the books and in three-eighths
of the pages in the newsletter; the data and research information
is presented in the other five-eighths.
One-half (four-eighths) of the newsletter is in double columns of
full paragraphs of data which has been supplied
by the new member. The data is laid out in the same form each
time. It begins with the full names, full dates,
and places of birth, marriage, and death of the emigrants; the
first family to establish a home in the new
country. Included within this is the first and last names and
birth and death YEARS of their ancestors
and their birth places.
Then are listed the first names of each of their children (the
first generation born completely
in the new land), their birth and death years, and their spouses'
"born" surnames. It is these corollary
surnames that often lead to additional help from persons who have
already researched them.
Finally, the SIBLINGS (in this case the brothers and sisters of
each of the main persons) are
listed by their first names, birth and death years, and spouses'
born surnames. It often takes more than one
entry for those with several surnames from the area.
Upon completion of the entry the place names are entered into an
alphabetical index. The
place names are indexed to the submitter's "membership" number.
(Currently on May 31, 1995, there are
1999 registered members who have donated data and 3567 (many
duplicated from different members) place
names.)
Upon publication, Mr. Gerald Dalum of San Antonio, Texas, types
up the full names given, the partial names, and the surnames of
those who married into another family (over 77,000 in May 1995,
89,000 in mid-1996) and indexes them to the submitters'
membership numbers. These "die Vorfahren" indexes are both entered into the
Internet, addressed at http://cefha.org/de/pom/dv/dpl-dv.html
by which you can research a single town or a single surname at a time.
BACK ARTICLES from each of the BANDE (plural for BAND -
volume) are also available as
well as the BOOKS and the INDEXES. What was done was to separate
the complete pages of the "die
Vorfahren" from the newsletter master. Then the articles were
cut out of the pages, eliminating the duplication
inherent in a newsletter form and the single time notices. These
articles were repasted on to sheets and
sold as complete sets for each "Band". The complete set of
articles from BAND 1 through BAND 17 are
avaialble. These sheets include the separate sections of "Maps
and Graphs" cut out (and sold) separately and
the "Geographie of Pommern" (5 sheets) also sold separately.
AMERICANS as ethnic Germans remain the oft divided group
as they were/are in
Germany. In their specific areas of settlement in the U.S. they
are not satisfied to be known simply as
German-Americans. In Wisconsin we have the center of the
Pomeranian-Americans just north of Milwaukee as
the Pommerscher Verein Freistadt. In Minnsota, one can find the
central organization of the
Bohemian-Americans. In North Dakota there is the central
depository for Germans-from Russia - Americans.
All three of these groups exist in our city of Oshkosh,
Wisconsin. The first on the east side, the 2nd on the
south side and the third group on the west side of town.
One can understand this "breaking into smaller groups" when you
look at just the Lutheran Synods which the
Protestants formed upon their arrival and history in America.
The Poles and Italians and Greeks have the
luxury of all being Catholic (for the first two) and Orthodox
(for the latter). Being Protestnat and Catholic has
severly torn the Irish apart. (Although we are accustomed to
think of them as all being Catholic because of the
Bing Crosby movies, usw.) The Spanish now entering America - the
Hispanics of the Carribean Islands,
Central America, and South America have the major luxury
of(mostly) being Catholic. So the
Spanish Fiestas of the summer are held in common rather
easily.
I'm not close enough to know how the Protestant-Catholic Irish
Fests go. But every year it is a miracle that the
German Fest comes off in Milwaukee. The Swabians, the
Pomeranians, the Bavarians, the Saxons, the
Bohemians, the Austrians, the Mecklenbergers, the Volga-Deutsch,
- - and I am not even into all THEIR divisions, have a great task
before them to pull it off.
The German-Americans in Wisconsin are by far the largest section
of the population. In fact, the 6th Congressional district of
Wisconsin is the most German area in the United States, with 4
other congressional districts running not far behind - before we
go on to Minnesota.
This "church" attitude (within Lutherans themselves in the U.S.
and Germany) is what makes it difficult to get access to
historical documents from individual churches and an entire synod
in Germany proper."
Webmaster's Note: Myron Gruenwald died 6 February 1998, but his legacy of
Pommern genealogy continues. With the exception of changes
in the "Back Articles" paragraph above, this article was as
written by Myron Guenwald and last revised by him 19 January
1998.
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