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Jacek Jan Pawłowski (ReMa student RUG)

Debates in Global Economic and Social History: part II

09-01-2014

Die “Bamberger” bei Posen: Explaining

Migration

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In 1882 Max Bär, a Prussian historian and official state archivist in Posen, published an

article entitled “Die ‘Bamberger’ bei Posen” in The Journal for History and Applied Geography of

the Province of Posen. His account was the first “academic” attempt to understand, describe, and

organize knowledge about the migrants who decided to leave the overpopulated region of the

city of Bamberg in Upper Franconia and settle in the depopulated villages surrounding Poznań.

Poznan was the biggest city of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the second decade of the

18th century. Maximilian Bär, writing some 150 years after the first wave of migrants arrived

from Bamberg, expressed his strong concerns about who these Polish-speaking Bambergers that

he met in Poznań in the second part of the 19th century actually were. This was during a time

when the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth literally ceased existing and the population of its

Western parts felt under the rule of the expanding Kingdom of Prussia. What is the story of these

people’s ancestors’ migration? And what happened to their German Nationality? (Bär was

convinced that national identity is an eternal phenomenon). Despite strong primary sources and

scrupulous investigation regarding the history of Bambergers’ migration, Bär’s account seem to

convey a propagandistic message arguing that their supposed1 Polonization was caused by

Catholic affiliations and Polish schools and marriage policies. This seems to point towards the

idea that their ‘’proper’’ identity has to be reclaimed by a more active Germanization policy. It

seems that after Bär’s book and its bitter conclusions about the irreversible loss of Bambergers

for the German nation, the Bambergers seemed to received little academic attention after this for

almost a century.

Due to the national tensions, wars, floating borders, and continuous administration shifts

that Poland was hit by in the first half of 20th century, Polish ethnologist prof. Maria Paradowska

in the mid 70’s decided to revise the accounts of Bavarian settlers in Poznań’s villages. The main

prospect of Paradowska’s work was to explain and justify the role of Bambergers in the social

history of the city. Paradowska found this work necessary because the anti-German climate of

1 Bias, M., Prussian Amphibians: The Construction of German And Polish Nationalism in Posen, NCSU Graduate Journal of History, vol 2 (2014).

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post-war Poland produced numerous misinterpretations regarding Bambergers’ affiliations,

identity, and political agenda. By that time Bambergers were wrongly identified, as they often

still are, with the activity of the Prussian Settlement Commission (Königlich Preußische

Ansiedlungskommission in den Provinzen Westpreußen und Posen) – a government commission

that operated in the Provinz Posen from 1886 until 1924. This commission was set up by

Bismarck in order to strengthen the colonization of the province by German peasants. Arguing

against Max Bär, Paradowska depicts the assimilation of the early XVIII century catholic

newcomers to Poznań as a largely natural process devoid of obstacles such as nationalism or any

other forms of ‘’state ideology”. Paradowska argues that even though some Bambergers still

spoke German at the time when Prussians had started to occupy Poznań in 1793, most of the

population refused to acknowledge their German origins. The third and fourth generation of

Bavarian settlers refused to be recognized as Germans by the newly arrived Prussian colonists

and their administration , because of their hybrid identities developed by Bamberger’s, could not

find any meeting point with the official ideology of the highly-militarized and protestant

Prussian state.

Bambergers’ ambivalent attitude towards the Prussian administration should be seen as

a multidimensional phenomenon. Despite enormous amount of material gathered by both

scholars, due to the overemphasis on the issue of identity and national values and rhetoric, their

research failed to perceive the migration of Bambergers as a dynamic process devoid of national

character. This process was actually a part of a much bigger migration movement within Europe

and as such it demands a scope of research reaching beyond the narrow focus on national or

local integration. In the long history of the city of Poznań, the migration of Bambergers was

among most successful integration processes, if not the most successful. Within a few

generations Bambergers had managed to already reach high levels in terms of the social

hierarchy in Poznan. They were also highly regarded and well-respected by the German-

Speaking settlers of destroyed and abandoned villages as well as the merchant elites of the city.

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Within this paper I would like to make an attempt to go beyond the traditional

view, held by both M. Bӓr and M. Paradowska, that the main reason for the success of the

Bambergers’ migration was due to their work ethics or their highly developed farming culture.

Even though such claims are well substantiated they refer to only one feature of a process which

could be better understood if seen as the outcome of multidimensional interaction at various

levels (micro, meso, macro). By introducing the point of view which conceptualizes the

migration pattern as a system I would like to follow the idea presented by Anne Winter that

migration can be conceived as an adaptive strategy whose likelihood and form are shaped (...), by

meso-level institutions (…), and by macro-level developments determining the spatial and social

distribution of resources and income opportunities2. By describing the nature of the first waves of

Bambergers’ migrants to Poznań at three structural levels, we can try to capture what A. Winter

describes as a ‘’shifting room for manoeuver’’ that became a solid base for a successful

integration of Bambergers minority. What A. Winter means by a ‘’room for manoeuver’’ is ’’the

capacity and incapacity of change of different groups, used to explain the speed and success of

migratory change in relation to changing factors at the macro, meso and micro levels, and to

evaluate the impact of different speeds of adaptation for the migrants involved and for society

more generally at origin and destination.’’

This paper argues that the high capacity of change of Bambergers who arrived at Poznań,

as well as the sustainability of their migration patter at an essential structural level, had been an

effect of an advantageous match between spush forces at origin and pull forces at destination. At

the time when the main “push” force at the region of Bambergers origin was a problem of

overpopulation, Poznań was suffering from the damage, depopulation, and plagues brought to

the region by the Great Northern War (1700-1721). Bambergers, invited by the Poznań’s

municipalities to restore destroyed farms and repair broken economy, took full advantage of

their privileged position as an antidote to the ruined local economy. As a newly arrived colonists

2 A. Winter, Migrants and Urban Change: Newcomers to Antwerpen, 1760-1860. Perspectives in Economic and Social History 1 (London: Pickering and Chatto 2009) p. 32.

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Bambergers were provided with a broad help in form of free seeds and privileges such as lhota

(duties allocated towards land owners were temporarily suspended). Nevertheless when it came

to establishing forms of payment, Bambergers gained the right to pay rent in the form of a fixed

amount of money. At the time when Bambergers arrived at Poznań in 1719, all of the villages

owned by the city and populated by Polish-speaking farmers were organized as manors with an

imposed corvée as the main tool of payment. Bambergers significantly contributed to the

process of modernizing the city’s economy and organizing its possession by refusing to pay in

kind. According to J. Rutkowski3 Bambergers’ colonization, and especially their refusal to work

within corvée framework, triggered and accelerated the mass scale process of changing the old-

fashioned manorial system of organization of local peasantry and put it on the track towards

economic progress and prosperity based on money rents and waged labor. The constant inflow

of German-speaking colonists during the first decades of the 18th century together with the

newly reformed rental system considerably accelerated the monetization of the local markets

which in turn resulted in increased social mobility and sustainable economic growth within the

region as well as throughout the entire whole century.

In order to provide a sufficient description of the circumstances under which the

Bambergers migration happened the following paper is divided into three parts, each

approaching these circumstances from different conceptual levels. The first level, the historical

background, is of highly descriptive nature and aims to describe the general macro settings

within which the migration occurred. The extensive description of the historical circumstances

aims to sketch the outlines of the international circumstances and helps us to interpret

Bambergers migration in mediating meso structures and micro circumstances4.

The second part of the paper operates on, the meso level, which is considered by A.

Winter as a decisive. In theory, the meso level of interpretation focuses primarily on institutions

such as information channels, migration traditions, and social networks. In this particular case,

due to the lack of sufficient sources which focus on the situation at the place of origin (Bamberg,

3 M. Bär, Die „Bamberger” bei Posen. (Posen, 1882) p. 5. 4 A. Winter, op. cit., p. 33.

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Upper Franconia), the paper mostly describes and interprets the social networks developed by

Bambergers at Poznań. The main prospect of that part is to depict which factors decided about

relatively smooth and successful assimilation of Bambergers within the community of Polish-

speaking farmers, despite obvious financial competition at the labor market. A lot of attention

has also been paid to the issue of the identity of the third and fourth generation of Bamberers,

their religious and cultural affiliations with the local community ,and their shared conflict with

the state doctrine represented and advocated by M. Bär.

1. Historical background (macro-level developments)

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth has not escaped one of the biggest and most

significant conflicts in the European early modern history: the Great Northern War (1700 –

1721). The Polish participation in the conflict was due to Augustus II the Strong, Elector of

Saxony, elected King of the Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth (from 1697). He had lured the

Kingdom of Poland into the war, as an ally of the Russian Tsar Peter I the Great, who at the time

was competing with the Swedish king Charles XII for the supremacy in Northern Europe.

Unfortunately, in this conflict, the territory of the Kingdom of Poland played roll as a “theatre of

war” .

In 1703 the city of Poznań was sieged and finally captured by Swedish troops. In the

following year the city was once again under siege from the anti-Swedish alliance army. This

siege was unsuccessful. Due to these sieges the city of Poznań, as well as the whole region of

Polonia Maior, suffered terribly. The report on the war’s destruction of the city’s manors

from 1705 shows that only 12% of the buildings remained untouched, while 37% were totally

devastated and 37% considerably damaged5. The villages and manors outside of the city walls

were regularly robbed and pillaged by the passing troops. The bubonic plague also spread to the

5 M. Paradowska, Bambrzy. Mieszkańcy dawnych wsi miasta Poznania. (Poznań, 1998) p. 45.

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area due to the soldiers in the area lacking any sort of proper sanitation. In late 1709 alone, nine

thousand people were killed by the plague. Due to this the city and its surroundings became

depopulated6.

With the depopulation of the villages owned by the city, Poznań lost a vital source of its

income from taxes as well as from crop supply, which were essential pillars of the trade

economy within the city. By the end of 1709 improvements within the city’s villages such as

Luboń, Wilda, Rataje, and Jeżyce, became a crucial point within the municipality’s policy to

reconstruct economic prosperity. The document, dated for 6 Sep. 1710, submitted by the

superior of the “Royal burgh” Poznań – Augustus II the Strong, recommended a recruitment of a

foreign artisans, who immediately should be given citizenship, rights to join the guilds, and all

needed support. According to the king’s demand, the future candidates had to satisfy only one

requirement, which was that they had to be Catholic7. Such a condition was in stark contrast to

the “circumstances of toleration” set down in the 16th and 17th century by the Polish-Lithuanian

Commonwealth which attracted Protestants and Jews who were persecuted in their countries of

origins. The Polish tolerance towards people of different faith changed due to two main reasons:

The spreading of the power of the xenophobic Jesuits scholars, and the religious identity of the

Swedish invaders who were Protestant.

According to J. Rutkowski8, long before Posener Bamberger colonisation occurred

Germans were revered as hard-working and solid farmers who would be able to flourish within

a rural economy. We do not know, however, how the Bamberger colonisation exactly proceeded

from the time it begun. M. Bär in his work9 considers two different reasons why the Bambergers

may have been attracted to the area of Poznań. The first reason related to an anonymous Polish

merchant who, during his trading voyages to the Holy Roman Empire, recognized

overpopulation in the area of the city of Bamberg, located in the Upper Franconia on the river

6 M. Bär, op. cit., p.5. 7 Rutkowski J., Studia z dziejów wsi polskiej XVI-XVIII w. (Poznań, 1956) p. 253. 8 Ibidem. p. 263. 9 M. Bär, op. cit., pp. 6-7.

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Regnitz. The second reason could be that the whole colonisations project was in fact planned by

the bishop of Poznań: Bartłomiej Tarło or Krzysztof Szembek10.

The first group of Bamberger’s colonizers arrived in the Poznań’s surroundings in 1719.

Our knowledge about this first wave of colonists is substantiated by “the location act” of the

village of Luboń dating 1 Aug. 1719. According to this act the colonization process was initiated

by the two childless couples and eleven married couples who’s offspring altogether totalled 60

persons11. The assistant in the Prussian Royal Archive in Poznań - M. Bär, also mentioned a

group of colonizers in the village of Dębiec who also arrived 1719. They altogether totalled 29

families (120 persons). Unfortunately the source used by Bär was burned just 15 years after his

research12.

The former colonization of the Poznań area proceeded until 1753 and, according to M.

Paradowska13, occurred in four different phases:

1719 – settling of the Luboń

1730 – settling of the Dębiec and the Bonin

1746 – settling of the Rataje and the Wilda

1750 – 1753 – settling of the Jeżyce and Górczyn14

The settlement process between 1719 and 1753 had a group character, each of its phase

concerned dozens of families. Altogether there were around 90 families (400-500 persons) in

the first wave that created a German minority in the 18th century area of the city of Poznań.

10 Ibidem. p. 8. 11 M. Paradowska, op. cit., p. 53. 12 Ibidem. p. 54. 13 Ibidem. p. 60. 14 J. Rutkowski, op. cit., p. 270.

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1.1. 19th century

On January 31st 1793 without any casualties the city of Poznań was captured by Prussian

troops. The capture of Poznań was just a small piece of a much larger historical process called

“the Second Partition of Poland”. As a result of the “Partitions of Poland” Prussia ended up

owning about 141,400 km² of previously Polish land and an estimated 23% of the

Commonwealth’s population. From that day up until ‘’The Greater Poland Uprising’’ in 1918,

Poznań (now called Posen) became the capital of the eastern frontiers of the Kingdom of Prussia.

The “Germanisation” policy toward the Poles was not consistent in its policies for the

whole 19th century. It went through numerous different phases which were influenced by

internal Prussian cultural policy as well as Polish independence movements. It was clear that

Prussians intended to unify newly conquered lands along with the rest of the Kingdom of

Prussia. Generally speaking, Prussian’ political and cultural attitude toward the Poles in the

eastern frontiers was lenient during the beginning of 19th century. In regard to the issues such as

official languages and access to holding offices of public trust etc. Poles had equal rights.

Prussian political attitude toward the Germanisation of Provinz Posen overlapped with the

unification of the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). The unification,

manifested by the Kulturkampf (1871-1871) – was essentially a series of sanctions against

Catholicism in Prussia which were inspired by Otto von Bismarck in order to reduce the area’s

social and political influence. The Provinz Posen was naturally deeply involved in the process of

Kulturkampf due to its Polish majority, nearly all of whom were Catholics. In the Province’s

registry note Catholic was tantamount to Pole. In 1867, among the 47 thousand of the city’s

citizens, Germans constituted for 47% of the total population, Poles for 38% and Jews for 15%.

At the same time, the situation in the countryside was exactly the opposite where Poles were the

majority. It’s worth mentioning that all Bamberg’s villages (Dębiec, Górczyn, Luboń…) were out

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of the city walls at that time, which meant that they did not belong to Posen. The city later

incorporated these villages in 1900.

2. Bambers; language, school, and religion. (meso level structures)

These circumstance put Bambergers in an awkward position. On a daily basis they were

surrounded by Poles and most of them spoke Polish fluently. The children who form mixed

marriages always would always have Polish as their first language. Most of the Bambergers’

parents, who spoke a Bavarian dialect at home, wanted German to be a lecture language for their

children. However, they were not guaranteed a sufficient proficiency level of the language by the

state administration. Even in 1867 Bamberger parents organized a protest against the

employment of a teacher whose German, they argued, was not fluent enough to teach. But if we

compare further Bambergers’ letters we can see that these language conditions seem to only be

an issue in relation to education.

Religion was also a core issue and Bambergers were perceived as devout Catholics. At

the beginning, Bavarian dialect speaking Bambergers would gather in their villages to pray

together, celebrate religious events (baptism, marriages), and to listen homily in German. These

community’s churches were branches of the official Polish parishes and for each official

sacrament Bambergers had to ask the right specific parish for permission. Bambergers’ religious

community paid a lot attention to the solemn character of the church’s celebrations, and, in their

eyes, marriage or baptism administered by a Polish parish church proved the wealth and social

status of the family involved. In turn more and more members of Bamberger’s community were

attracted by the Polish Catholic church. As times went by more and more Bambergers became

members of Polish parishes where they were learning Polish and making acquaintance with

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their Polish neighbours. From this moment onward Poles and Bambergers were not only

physical neighbours, but also “neighbours in faith”.

Bambergers were confident that German was a useful and an essential language in

certain political circumstances unless religious education was not an issue. The elders were

convinced that Polish, as the language of masses, was an indispensable tool for their children to

understand and fathom the holy mystery, which was an inseparable part of every Bamberger’s

live. If we take a closer look at the petition protesting against the movement of the 27 children

with the German surnames to the German part of the classes, some questions about their

identity seems a bit more clear.

With the great sorrow we found out that not only 5 but another 27 Polish children with the

German’s surnames were moved to the German’s sections of our classes, resolved to teach

religion in German and to leave them out of any classes in Polish – their native language.

[…] We protest against assign our children to German form because we - their parents and

carers – were and we are Poles and we are going to bring our children up to be Poles. […]

Neither we, nor our children can’t German enough well to understand in this language the

holy mystery of our faith.15

Even at first glance such a firm and resolute declaration of Bambers fully identifying with the

Polish nation sounds incredible and pretentious. Employee of the state Royal archive

(Königliche Preussische Staatsarchiv) Maksimilian Bär sought for reasons of such a statement at

clerical prompting.

15 M. Bär, op. cit., pp. 39-40.

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2.1 Die „Bamberger” bei Posen – an book by Maksimilian Bär

In 1869, on the Oberpräsident Carl von Horn’s initiative Otto von Bismarck established

The Prussian Royal State Archive (Königliche Preussische Staatsarchiv), determined to find out

and underline the immemorial German character of the Provinz Pozen’s lands and the

superiority of the German culture”16. Mentioned above M. Bär, an employee of the archive,

published in 1882 results of his long investigations of the Bambers minority. Bar’s study is a

brilliant historical source, containing unique details such as statistics, letters, petitions, and

official documents addressed by the Bambers to the Prussian administration. Beside all these

valuable materials and information, it also contains Bär’s personal narrative views on the

Bambers’ identity. We have to remember that in the late 19th century, so-called ‘’Social Sciences’’

were strongly influenced by the contemporary political mood. The 19th century’s nationalistic

doctrines frequently used ‘’science” to consolidate its truthfulness and confirm territorial claims.

At first Bambers were perceived as potential partners for German administration in the

process of settling the Province Posen by German colonists 17. Bär wished to restore Bambergers

to their ‘’Original’’ identity, which in his opinion was German. According to his paper in 1882

“elders still appear to be Germans, but the young generation of a males, who are in the age of 20s

and 30s – and it’s hard to conceal it – are Poles, by their nature as well as by their manners.”18 The

author was overwhelmed with bitterness resulting from his feelings towards when persons of

German descent disavow their great background in order to become a part of, to use 19th century

terminology, an inferior culture. For M. Bär who, as an administrative employee as well as an “a

child of his times” who was strongly marked by nationalistic and chauvinistic ideologies,

Polonisation” of Bambers seemed an unnatural and terrible process. He was also trying to

understand and explain the fact in few ways. He once mentioned “they say that they are Polish,

because it was incessantly instilled in them … that Polish and Catholic is the same thing” - what

16 Z. Wojciechowska, The history of the State Atchive in Poznań. 17 In later years Prussian’s administration established numer of organisations edtermined to by in a land from a Polish owners (Prussian Settlement Commission Ansiedlungskommision, established in 1886 and Deutscher Ostmarkenverein, 1894.) 18 M. Bär, op. cit., pp. 49.

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seems to be justified. As we mentioned above, in Prussian administration’s terminology Catholic

was tantamount to Pole, and aware of this fact Bambers tried to avoid being consider as a

Protestant Prussians, maintained that they are Pols. The author of Die „Bamberger” bei, Posen

recognizes the intimate relationship between the Polish Catholic church and Bambers, blaming

the church for drawing them away from their roots and accelerating the process of

“Polonisation”. He couldn’t accept such a situation and still believed that:

Each of them has a feeling, that he is not the same as Poles living around him. […] If

we’ll bring their attention, they will think and realize that the Poles cheat an lied to them,

by using religion they were robbed of their nationality. […] They can think proudly, that

their German’s fathers always had an important and privileged positions in comparison

with the local Poles, and it’s not honourably to live with them. To achieve this, not only with

Bambers, but also another Polonized Germans, constant state’s attention and guard of all of

the living at frontiers Germans are necessary. 19

Even everyday life has brought Bär more disappointments; once when M. Bär was walking

through by village of Wilda he met a 12-years old boy by the name of Eirmann. When asked “If

you are a German?” boy answered ‘’I used to be a Bamber, but now I’m a Pole.’’

For current descendants of Bambers Bar’s propaganda disquisition about “restoring them to

their original German identity” is unacceptable. They confirm their attachment to the Polish and

local community through their hard work for their villages city, even in the grimmest time of its

history.

It is worth mentioning that the assimilation of Bambers in the area of Poznań was

proceeding in relation to three different ways: everyday life, school, and religious activity. The

need to clearly determine peoples’ identity arose with the Bambers with the rise of Prussian

nationalistic and anti-Catholic discourse. Bambers pressed to choose between their Polish

religion and a new imperialistic German identity decided to remain faithful to their religious

19 Ibid. p. 49-54.

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beliefs. The cultural differences between living for more than hundred years with Poles,

Bavarian minorities, and Protestant values of dominant Prussians, were deep enough to bring

Bambers closer to their Polish neighbours. In Province Posen, Kulturkampf, instead of

accomplishing its main goals, had the opposite effect and even increased the polarization within

society. Bambers, being in favour of the Catholic church, simultaneously questioned themselves

about their status in new national terms.

Conclusions:

The main aim of this paper was to shed some light on structural construction of the

Bambergers’ migration phenomenon in the times of accelerated social and structural changes of

shifting economic systems (manorial to market economy) and national states’ borders (from

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Kingdom of Prussia). In my investigation I was trying to

capture the nature of the process of Bamberger’s social adaptation, as well as the dynamic of

their success by following A. Winters claim that ‘’the extent to which different migration patterns

succeed in retaining a certain selectivity and resilience in areas of structural change proves an

important heuristic device by which to analyse the capacity and success of adaptation by different

groups.’’ From a structural point of view Bambergers showed incredible ability to change in

relation to changing factors at the macro, meso and micro level, whereas at the same time they

wielded enormous influence on the development of the whole region. I believe that Bambergers’

‘’high speed of adaptation’’ can be better understood through the structural lenses extracting

their strategies and practices at different levels.

By doing so, the paper proved that Bambergers achieved their solid and well integrated

position within the local structures by exploiting the ‘’room for manoeuvre of collective and

individual agency’’ developed during the first years after their arrival at Poznań. The paper

argues that Bamberers’ room for manoeuver of collective and individual agency was based on

three decisive pillars:

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Favourable situation for migration at the macro level created by the Great

Northern War’s damages

Administrative culture imported by migrants from their region of origin,

embodied in the form of ‘’German colonisation law’’ which contained favourable

conditions for further development of their farms, as well as entire local economy

(money rent).

Friendly environment for their emancipation, arose due to the shared system of

believes with local population.

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Literature

Bär M., Die „Bamberger” bei Posen. Posen, 1882. Digital library of Wielkopolska. Web. 15

Apr. 2013. Paradowska M., Bambrzy. Mieszkańcy dawnych wsi miasta Poznania. Poznań,

1998. Print.

Pfrenzinger A., „Bamberger im Posenerland.” Jahrbuch des Frankenbundes 1938.

Würzburg, 1938.

Rutkowski J., Studia z dziejów wsi polskiej XVI-XVIII w. Poznań, 1956. Print.

Winter A., Migrants and Urban Change: Newcomers to Antwerp, 1760-1860. Perspectives

in Economic and Social History 1 (London: Pickering and Chatto 2009).

Wojciechowska, Z., The history of the State Atchive in Poznań. Web 30.05.2013.