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    Vistula Germans

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    Vistula Germans were ethnic Germans who settled along the Vistula River in central Poland from the 18th century onwards. They migrated at the invitation of landowners and settled in existing towns and villages, establishing many new German communities. By World War 1 there were over 3,000 German villages documented in the region. After World War 2 most remaining Vistula Germans were expelled to Germany, though some remained in Poland.

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    Vistula Germans

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    Thomas Jennings
    37 views3 pages
    Vistula Germans were ethnic Germans who settled along the Vistula River in central Poland from the 18th century onwards. They migrated at the invitation of landowners and settled in existing towns and villages, establishing many new German communities. By World War 1 there were over 3,000 German villages documented in the region. After World War 2 most remaining Vistula Germans were expelled to Germany, though some remained in Poland.

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    Vistula Germans were ethnic Germans who settled along the Vistula River in central Poland from the 18th century onwards. They migrated at the invitation of landowners and settled in existing towns and villages, establishing many new German communities. By World War 1 there were over 3,000 German villages documented in the region. After World War 2 most remaining Vistula Germans were expelled to Germany, though some remained in Poland.

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    37 views3 pages

    Vistula Germans

    Uploaded by

    Thomas Jennings
    Vistula Germans were ethnic Germans who settled along the Vistula River in central Poland from the 18th century onwards. They migrated at the invitation of landowners and settled in existing towns and villages, establishing many new German communities. By World War 1 there were over 3,000 German villages documented in the region. After World War 2 most remaining Vistula Germans were expelled to Germany, though some remained in Poland.

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    of 3

    Vistula Germans

    Vistula Germans (German: Weichseldeutsche) are ethnic Germans who had settled in what became known
    after the 1863 Polish rebellion as the Vistula Territory. This territory, so designated by the ruling Russians
    of the time, encompassed most of the Vistula River (Weichsel in German, Wisła in Polish) watershed of
    central Poland up to just east of Toruń (Thorn).

    Contents
    Migration history
    Dutch influences
    Genealogy
    See also
    References
    External links

    Migration history
    The Vistula River flows south to north in a broad easterly loop that extends from the Carpathian Mountains
    to its mouth on the Baltic Sea near Gdańsk (Danzig). Many were invited in by German and Polish nobility
    but most settled in cities and large towns which were often governed under a form known as German town
    law.

    German settlement on abandoned or empty land in Kujawy and Royal Prussia increased as land owners
    sought to re-populate their lands after the losses of the Great Northern War (1700–1721).[1] Migration up
    the Vistula River, to Płock, Wyszogród, and beyond, continued through the period of the Partitions of
    Poland by Prussia, Austria and Russia. Much of the Vistula River watershed region came under Prussian
    rule in 1793 and became the provinces of South Prussia and New East Prussia.

    In spite of the brief liberation of Polish territories by Napoleon (when the region was known as the Duchy
    of Warsaw) and in spite of the takeover by Russia following the Treaty of Paris (1815), German migration
    continued into the region throughout the 19th century. They often settled in existing communities but also
    established many new ones so that, by World War I, well over 3000 villages with German inhabitants can
    be documented.[2]

    Some German villages in the area were identified by the adjective Niemiecki, which means "German" in
    Polish (e.g., Kępa Niemiecka). This differentiated a German village from another in the same immediate
    area where Poles lived (the Polish village might have the adjective Polski (e.g., Kępa Polska). After World
    War II, due to anti-German feelings, the adjective was commonly dropped or replaced by a term like Nowe
    (new). However, some villages even today still retain the old identifier.

    The vast majority of Germans in this region were Lutheran. While they retained a clear Germanic ethnicity,
    traditions and language, they often adapted or adopted Polish culture and food and sometimes surnames. A
    limited amount of intermarriage between the cultures occurred.[3] Large numbers of these Germans chose
    to leave the area during the Napoleonic occupation, heading further south and east to the Black Sea and
    Bessarabian regions of Russia. Still others headed east to Volhynia during the Polish uprisings of the 1830s
    and 1860s. In addition to fleeing these unsettled conditions, the latter were also attracted by offers of land
    that became available as a result of emancipation of serfs in Russia.

    Significant numbers of these Vistula Germans (including many who had spent a generation or more in the
    Black Sea, Bessarabia, and Volhynia regions) migrated to North America in the latter part of the 19th and
    early 20th centuries. Since most were farmers, they tended to head for opportunities of inexpensive or
    virtually free homestead land in the Midwestern and Plains States and Canadian prairies. They are of course
    scattered about in other regions as well.

    Those who remained in this area through World War II were expelled to German territory in accord with
    the post-war agreements between the Allied Powers of Britain, Russia, and the United States. In a few
    cases, ethnic Germans who had been detained by Communist Polish authorities for forced labor remained
    in Poland, as did some ethnic Germans who had family ties with ethnic Poles. Some ethnic Germans were
    captured by Soviet troops, and were forced east to settle in Kazakhstan and Siberia. They were never
    repatriated.

    Dutch influences
    In the 16th and 17th centuries, settlers from the Netherlands and Friesland, often Mennonites, founded self-
    governing villages in Royal Prussia. This type of village organization became known as the "Olęder Law,"
    and such villages were called "Holendry" or "Olędry." Inhabitants of these villages were called Olędrzy,
    regardless of whether they were of Dutch, German or other descent.[4] There were two Mennonite
    communities in Mazovia: one at Wymyśle Polskie and one at Deutsch Kazun.[5] Some Mennonite
    adherents lived in nearby villages where a substantial majority of the inhabitants were Lutheran Germans,
    such as Sady or Świniary, and there was some intermarriage between the two faith groups. These contacts
    may have contributed to Germanization of these Mennonites.

    Genealogy
    Records for Lutheran Churches (as well as some Baptist and Moravian Brethren), many of them dating
    back to the late 18th century, can be found in Warsaw Archives and were microfilmed by the LDS Family
    History Library. Known available Lutheran records are listed on the website of the Society for German
    Genealogy in Eastern Europe.[6] In some places few if any records exist, primarily because of their
    destruction in World War II. Where Lutheran Churches did not exist, or in times before their existence, the
    Germans would have been obliged to register at a Roman Catholic church.

    See also
    Olędrzy
    History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union
    Nazi-Soviet population transfers
    Flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland during and after World War II
    German minority in Poland
    German American

    References
    1. Karol Ciesielski, Osadnictwo "Olęderskie" w Prusach Królewskich i na Kujawach w świetle
    Kontraktów Osadniczych Studia i Materiały do Dziejów Wielkopolski i Pomorza, vol. IV,
    Issue 2 (1958), p. 226
    2. Kolonizacja Niemiecka w Poludniowo-Wschodniej Czesci Krolestwa Polskiego w Latach
    1815-1915; Wieslaw Sladkowski, Wydawnictwo Lubelskie
    3. See There were no Mixed Marriages? at Upstream Vistula (http://www.upstreamvistula.org/
    Mysteries/Myst_MixedMarriages.htm)
    4. For example, in 1715-1716, parish records for Płonkowo referred to Lutheran Germans from
    villages in the manor of Kaczkowo, Inowrocław County as being from "Olęndrów
    Rojewskich", "Olęndrów Kaczkowskich", "Glinskich Olęndrów" or "Jezuickich Holęndrów."
    See Family History Library Microfilm No. 2256803, Item 1, Frames 5-26.
    5. Jerzy Szałygin, Katalog Zabytkow Osadnictwa Holenderskiego Na Mazowszu (Warsaw:
    DiG Wydawnictwo, 2004). Much, but not all, of this book's text is available in an English
    translation at: Catalogue of Monuments of Dutch Colonization in Mazovia (http://holland.org.
    pl/index_en.htm) Unfortunately, the translation rendered the term Olęder into English as
    "Dutch." This sometimes creates the impression in the English-language text that the author
    meant persons descended from settlers from the Netherlands or Friesland, when he actually
    meant persons (most often ethnic Germans) living in villages organized under the Olęder
    law. Despite this translation problem, Szałygin's work is an excellent source of information
    for numerous villages in the subject region.
    6. Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe - Lutheran Records (http://www.sggee.org/
    church_parishes/LutheransInRusPoland.html)

    External links
    Vistula Germans (http://www.upstreamvistula.org/index.htm) History and map settlements by
    region
    The Breyer Map of the German settlements in central Poland (http://rcin.org.pl/dlibra/doccont
    ent?id=31639)
    Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe - with focus on Russian Poland and
    Volhynia (http://www.sggee.org)
    Germans From Russia Heritage Society (http://www.grhs.org) Focus is on Black Sea and
    Bessarabia regions but some limited help available for Vistula Germans as well.
    German-Russian Settlement Map (http://www.sggee.org/research/GermanSettlements-Easte
    rnEurope.pdf)
    JewishGen's Gazetteer (http://www.jewishgen.org/Communities/LocTown.asp) Not just for
    Jewish villages.

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    This page was last edited on 10 October 2021, at 10:08 (UTC).

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