Bambers: The German Farmers Who Brought New Life to Poznań
In the 18th century, hundreds of German farmers were invited to settle in the Poznań area. They became known as Bambers and created a specific local identity manifested in customs, costumes and more. Eventually they assimilated with their neighbouring communities and became Polish citizens, as well as an indispensable part of the cultural landscape of the city of Poznań.
Weeds in the Old Market square
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Old Market Square in Poznań, photo: Łukasz Szczepański / Reporter / East News
In the beginning of the 18th century, the population of Poznań and its surroundings dropped dramatically due to the Great Northern War and the subsequent epidemic of plague. The first citizens were infected in 1709, and soon, the disease took its grim toll:
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In Poznań, already depopulated by the war, the number of citizens decreased from 12,000 to 3,000. The adjacent villages became almost completely desolate, and for some time, the city itself also stood almost empty. […] Weeds were growing in the Old Market Square, the clocks in the towers weren’t working, robbers were looting the devastated shops.
Author
Poznań historian Jarosław Burchardt in ‘Bamber, Czyli Swój Chłop’, a 2017 article by Onet.pl, trans. MK
The emptied villages surrounding the city played a vital role, as they provided Poznań with food and income. To bring them back to life, the city’s authorities came up with the idea to replenish their populations with foreign settlers. Poland’s king at the time, Augustus II the Strong, agreed to foreigners settling on Polish soil – as long as they were Catholic.
Poznań had good trade relations with the German city of Bamberg, so it turned there in search of colonists. Bamberg’s population was Catholic, and due to excessive taxation, local farmers were willing to migrate in search of a better place to live. Poland offered them economic support: tax exemptions and subsidies, as well as free grain for sowing and wood for housing. That proved sufficient to convince Bamberg farmers to move to the Poznań area.
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A former Bamber country home in today's Poznań, photo: Łukasz Cynalewski / AG
The first German settlers arrived in 1719 and settled in the village of Luboń. There, on 1st August, the Polish authorities signed a contract with the newcomers:
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We the below-signed Mayor and Council, Village Head and Aldermen, Twenty Sirs and Stewards, as the administrators of the estates belonging to the royal city of Poznań […], made efforts and published a notice declaring freedoms in order to draw people. […] The German people are happy to take good care of the farms, remain obedient, eagerly pay taxes and rent on time, abide by laws and do work without being compelled to do so, and agree to all orders and duties.
Author
Original text courtesy of the Poznań Bamber Association, trans. MK
The offered settlement terms were seen as favourable and attracted more German farmers. During the years 1719 to1753, about 700 colonists arrived in several waves. They settled in various villages in the Poznań area such as Wilda, Dębiec, Rataje and Bonin, helping to revivify those places. Some of them moved to Poznań itself.
It’s worth adding, however, that not all of these German migrants came from Bamberg. Some came from nearby places like Baunach, Kronach and Lichtenfels. Nevertheless, they all eventually were called Bambrzy (Bambers) by Poles, after the hometown of the first group to come to Poland.
According to historians, the colonists integrated with local Polish communities harmoniously. At first, the Bambers didn’t speak Polish, but eventually, quite a few of them learned the language of their new homeland to be able to attend the Catholic masses celebrated in Polish at their village churches. Also, Bamber children learnt Polish at school. After some time, mixed Polish-Bamber marriages started to appear.As a consequence of all this, by the beginning of the 19th century, some of the Bamber families were already Polonised. Still, most Bambers considered their German roots an important part of their identity; many of them spoke both German and Polish.
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Bamber women in traditional folk costumes, ca. 1900, photo: Atelier Iris, J. Maćkiewicz, courtesy of the National Museum in Poznań
As a social group, the Bambers stood out not only because of their German roots but also thanks to their specific folklore. This was displayed, amongst other things, in their celebrations devoted to St Roch and St Laurence – saints especially important to Bambers.
In mid-August, Bamber farmers would organise evening processions commemorating St Roch, during which they would pass through the villages with lanterns. On 10th August, the feast of St Laurence, they would refrain from burning a fire in the kitchen and eat meals prepared the day before. Near their homes, Bambers built wayside shrines dedicated to the two saints (and others as well).
But possibly the most characteristic element of Bamber folklore was the ornate women’s attire:
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Bamber women wore short, lively and brightly coloured skirts with plenty of folds. The skirts were heavily creased; the tops were predominantly black velvet, decorated with beautiful lace; the hose were white; the tall shoes black and high-heeled; the shoelaces white. But most beautiful was the tall headwear complementing the Bamber women’s costume.
Author
Leon H. Śliwiński in ‘Poznańskie Wspominki: Starzy Poznaniacy Opowiadają’, trans. MK
The ‘tall headwear’ mentioned above was the impressive kornet or mobcap, which was typically about 20 centimetres high. Created from thick cardboard and wire, it was meticulously decorated. In the front, the kornet sported an array of artificial flowers interspersed with glass beads and tufts of tinsel. In the back, it had numerous bows of artificial silk, which were attached to the straps used to tighten the headwear to a good fit. One should add that the kornet was reserved for maidens only, as married women wore elegant but less ornate mobcaps.
Interestingly, the Bamber women’s costume didn’t come from Germany. It originated on Polish soil as a mix of Biedermeier fashion and folk clothing from Greater Poland, Upper Franconia and Saxony. Bamber women would wear their costumes on special occasions, such as religious celebrations (especially during the feast of Corpus Christi), weddings and national holidays.
Influencing landscape & language
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Bamber shrine of John of Nepomuk in 125 Bukowska Street in Poznań, photo: Four.mg / Wikimedia.org
It’s believed that the Bambers became fully assimilated with Polish society in the times of Chancellor Bismarck. After the partitions of Poland, Poznań and its area became part of the Prussian partition, and in the late 19th century, the German ruler ran a policy of Germanisation in his Polish lands. This entailed, among other things, substituting Polish with German as the language of instruction at schools. The Bambers, who by then had strong ties to Poland – through language, family, religion – opposed this policy and declared themselves Polish nationals. According to Prussian documents from that era, not a single person residing in the villages near Poznań considered themselves to be German. In this respect, Bismarck’s Germanisation policy had an effect opposite to the one intended.
Thanks to the favourable economic terms they received and their own hard work, many Bambers gained wealth. As a result, the word ‘bamber’ eventually evolved in the Polish language. It came to denote not only a person with German roots but also well-off farmers, even those without foreign heritage.
In the early 20th century, the growing city of Poznań began to annex the villages inhabited by the Bambers. But members of this group often found it difficult to adapt to urban life – they remained farmers long after their lands became part of the city. Because of this, the word ‘bamber’ expanded its meaning once more. It began to be used to describe a backward, primitive person.
This may seem rather unfair, especially if you consider that due to their accomplishments, many Bamber families had gained stature in the city. For example, the Leitgebers and Deierlings became well-known shop owners, active in banking and educational societies. Stanisław Pfitzner ran one of the city’s most famous patisseries, prestigiously located in the Old Market Square.
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Michał Bajerlein villa in Poznań in 13 Różana Street, photo: Łukasz Cynalewski / AG
The Bambers also enriched Poznań with a number of architectural monuments. Especially valued are the picturesque wayside shrines they built in the former villages, which can now be found within the city. One such monument, featuring a figure of St Anthony with the child Jesus, stands in 132 Zamenhofa Street. It was erected in 1889 by the Walter family to memorialise the death of one of its members who was struck by lightning. Other Bamber shrines can be found, for example, in 16 Stanisława Street and 125 Bukowska Street, where monuments devoted to St Laurence and John of Nepomuk, respectively, are located.
Another example showing how Bambers influenced the landscape of Poznań is the beautiful villa in 13 Różana Street:
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[It] was built in 1903 for Michał Bajerlein, a wealthy merchant with Bamber roots. […] The building has an ornate façade, carefully designed and highlighted by balconies with meticulously crafted balustrades. […] What especially catches the eye is the so-called aedicule, or the shrine with a massive Ionic column supporting a magnificent wooden sculpture of Archangel Michael clad in armour and killing a dragon with a spear. The figure was made in 1900 in France. St Michael was the patron of the villa’s owner.
Author
From ‘Tropem bamberskich świątków’ (On the Trail of Bamber Sculptures of Saints), www.ehistoria.edu.pl, trans. MK
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Bamber Holiday near the Bamber Girl's Well, photo: Łukasz Cynalewski / AG
As for so many Poles, the 20th century was difficult for the Bambers. There is little information about their fate during World War I, but during World War II, they remained predominantly loyal to Poland even though Nazi Germany offered them the option of collaboration, in view of their German roots. For refusing to side with Hitler, many Bambers were sentenced to forced labour, deported or even sent to death camps.
After the War, the communist regime in Poland was distrustful of people with German-sounding surnames, so Bambers were subject to further repressions. They faced, for example, confiscation of their land and property. A renaissance of their identity came only after the fall of communism in Poland in 1989.
The year 1996 saw the creation of the Poznań Bamber Association, an organisation whose goal is to preserve and cultivate the culture of Poznań Bambers. Thanks to the association’s efforts, in 2003, the Bamber Museum opened in Poznań. At the museum, located in 7/9 Mostowa Street, you can see a reconstruction of a typical Bamber country home from the late 19th century and intriguing artefacts such as traditional farm tools or a 19th century kornet.
Since its founding, the Poznań Bamber Association has been organising the Bamber Holiday, an annual event commemorating the signing of the aforementioned contract with the first German settlers to Luboń (which, by the way, wasn’t annexed by Poznań). Bamber Holiday takes place on the first Saturday after 1st August in Poznań’s Old Market Square, near the Bamber Girl’s Well. The well is a delightful 1915 monument designed by sculptor Józef Wackerle, featuring a statue of a girl dressed in Bamber attire and carrying jugs. During the holiday, the sculpture is decorated with a garland and the text of the Luboń contract is read out loud. Women dressed in traditional Bamber costumes gather around the well, and Bamber culinary specialities, such as yeast cake, are offered. The charming event attracts plenty of attendees, many of whom are locals wanting to get in touch with their heritage – some claim that one in every four Poznań citizens has Bamber roots.
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Bamber pageant in Śródka in Poznań, photo: Łukasz Cynalewski / AG
The 300th anniversary of the Bambers’ arrival to the Poznań area took place in 2019, which was therefore was declared Bamber Year in Poznań. On that occasion, a special photographic album compiled by Magdala Mrugalska-Banaszak was put out by Wydawnictwo Miejskie Posnania, a publishing house affiliated with the local city hall. Titled 300 Lat Razem: Poznańscy Bambrzy (Together for 300 Years: The Poznań Bambers), the book contains a wealth of archival pictures showing the everyday life, customs and history of the Bambers. To honour the anniversary, a Poznań park located near Orzechowa Street was named Poznań Bamber Park.
Also in 2019, the Poznań Bamber Association received the important Oskar Kolberg Award, which is given for outstanding achievements in the field of traditional regional culture. On the award’s website, you can find a page praising the association’s promotion of Bamber culture, including the following passage:
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Almost three centuries of shared history and shared events resulted in a symbiosis of cultures and customs. Today, one can say: what’s linked to Bambers is linked to Poznań, and what’s tied to Poznań is tied to Bambers. […] Poznań Bambers are an indispensable element of the contemporary cultural landscape of the city of Poznań.
Author
From nagrodakolberg.pl, trans. MK
Written by Marek Kępa, May 2020
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