[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Germans and Poland

[Marlo50]

To Otto, Dick, Paul and Gunther, I am very happy to have your replies.  I do 
understand a little better now and I know my mother-in-law would not have 
liked my questioning her being German since that's what they considered to 
be. Thank you for taking time to help me understand.  Margaret
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Günther Böhm" <GHBoehm at ish.de>
To: "Marlo50" <Marlo50 at bex.net>
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2007 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Germans and Poland


> Marlo50 schrieb:
>
> >I have been following this subject and am totally confused.  I am not
> German, my husband is.  His ancestry is actually Pommern and that is my 
> question.  His grandparents were from the areas of Stolp,
> >Rummelsburg, Lauenburg, and who knows where else.  If Germany was not
> unified until 1871 into one country and his ancestors lived in the area 
> now Poland what were they in the early years?  I can
> >only go back to births in the early 1800's but it was in Pommern.
> What were these
> >people?  German?
> >
> Hello Margaret,
> if you think of what they felt to be, they were definitely Germans.
> Western Pomerania belonged to the Holy Roman Empire since 14th century,
> Eastern Pomerania (Pomerellen, including Stolp, Rummelsburg and
> Lauenburg) officially since 1523. But the German colonization of
> Pomerania was much earlier. However, the Kashubian language is still
> alive in the environment of Danzig [Gdansk]. So the ethnic non-German
> Pomeranians would most probably have felt as Kashubians, not as Poles.
> As I told you before, LOHROFF is a genuine German name. It derives from
> Loherhof, the farm of a peasant who produced Lohe (oak bark) for the
> tannery. SCHWOCHOW derives from the eponymous village [Polish:
> Swochowo], Pyritz district, Pomerania. As a surname it doesn't identify
> whether its first bearer spoke and felt German or Polish. Of course he
> must have been an inhabitant of Schwochow (Pyritz was allegiant to
> Brandenburg since 1493).
>
> Schwochow was first mentioned in 1274. In later 15th century the feudal
> lord of the village was a von PLOTZKE or PLÖTZKE, relative of the late
> Landesmeister of the Teutonic Order Heinrich v.PLÖTZKE; later the
> MITZLAFF family, mayors of Stolp from 1459 to 1460, 1511 to 1539, 1544
> to 1579 and 1608 to 1610.
>
>  From 1459 to 1467 a Nikolaus SWUCHOW [SCHWOCHOW] was mayor of Stolp. So
> at least at that time the SCHWOCHOW family must have been German (the
> listing of the German mayors of Stolp from 1340 to 1945 under
> http://stolp.de/Stolp-Stadt/Behoerden-Verwaltung/buergermeister.htm ).
>
> Günther
>
>
>
>
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