[…] Population Development across Eastern Prussia
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Copyright © 2004 Klaus-Peter Jurkat / As of December 22, 2004
The proportion of Prussians (Pruzzen) contributing to the newly formed “Prussian tribe”
For some time I have been concerned with the question of how many immigrants from Lithuania and Mazovia were involved in the settlement of East[ern] Prussia through 1740.
Dollinger states:
“However, special reference must be made to his generous settlement work after the plague years in East Prussia, which was centrally directed by the state. The king allowed settlers from the Palatinate and Nassau, 2,000 Swiss and 17,000 Protestants expelled from Salzburg because of their faith to immigrate to East Prussia. As a result, the East Prussian population grew by 160,000 people to about 600,000 between 1713 and 1740. The population of East Prussia grew together into a state community from Germans of various tribes and foreigners, including Lithuanians, not least because of their personal ties to their princely patron.”
Gause is of the opinion that the share of the Lithuanian and Mazovian element in the Prussian tribe cannot be determined numerically. In any case, it was not small. Lithuanian origin are the many names on -kat, kies, eit, at, is, us (Kukat, Budskies, Lenkeit, Szameitat, Jaguttis and Stantus are mentioned as examples). Masurian are the names on -ski, ek (Kowalski, Ziemek), ak (Nowak) and a (Kurella, Slomka, Skwarra, Warda).
If one wants to calculate at least roughly the Lithuanian and Mazurian share in the Prussian tribe, it is advisable to deal with the Pruzes and then with the immigrant colonists, for whom estimates or literature values are available.
In the 13th century the Pruzes lived in the densely populated districts of Pomesania, Pogesania, Warmia (Ermland), Barten, Natangen and Samland from the Vistula to the Curonian Lagoon, which were preceded by the large but less densely populated districts of Sassen, Galinden, Sudauen, Nadrauen and Schalauen in a wide arc from the southeast to the northeast. A disproportionately large part of the total Prussian population lived in the Samland Gau.
The Prussians were forcibly Christianized by the Teutonic Order from 1231. When the subjugation of the last Pruz tribe of the Sudau in 1283 marked the end of a land-grabbing war lasting more than 50 years, the country was called Prussia, and a wilderness emerged on its eastern and southern borders. Gause states that in the course of the fighting the border dungeons Nadrauen, Schalauen and Sudauen became almost deserted. The remnants of the Schalauer were settled in villages near Tilsit and Ragnit. The surviving Sudau people were resettled by the Teutonic Order in Samland, if they had not left for Lithuania. The area was known as “Sudauerwinkel” for a long time.
The great wave of immigration of German colonists died out already around 1320 (Gause). The settlement was then continued with the children of the immigrants as “internal colonization”. When the Teutonic Order suffered the defeat of Tannenberg in 1410, it had reached the edge of the wilderness.
According to “Territorien-Ploetz”, settlers from across the border were brought in to populate the wilderness on the eastern and southern borders. Masurians (from Mazovia) immigrated in small numbers already since the 14th century , sporadically also Lithuanians and Ruthenians. After 1466 (the year of the 2nd Peace of Thor) the immigration of Masurians and Lithuanians becomes stronger and swells especially in the first half of the 16th century. Masurians are set not only as peasants , but also as landowners, penetrate also into the cities; Lithuanians are almost exclusively peasants. The south of the country speaks since the 16th century predominantly Masurian(“Masuria”), the northeast Lithuanian (“Prussian Lithuania”).
The literature on the Prussians:
Von Krockow speaks of “about 150,000 to 170,000 Prussians who existed between the Vistula and the Memel” around 1230. Boockmann refers to the latest estimate of the population figures at the time of the conquest of the country by the Teutonic Order and assumes 220,000 people for Prussia and the Kulm region. Higounet states that “the population of Prussia at the beginning of the 13th century was estimated at 170,000.” Boockmann also writes, “The population figures that are given are inevitably based on estimates. According to such estimates, the population of Prussia before the beginning of the conquest of the country by the Teutonic Order was 140,000 heads. Around 1400, the Prussian population in the Order’s state may have been as strong – it was joined by about 103,000 Germans and about 27,000 Poles, mainly in the Kulm region. This would mean for the Prußische population that the losses from the conquest time were again balanced”.
According to Schumacher, the Order did not “exterminate” the native Prussian population of his country, nor did it “Germanize” them according to plan. Against the attempt of an extermination, even if it would have been intended, already the simplest considerations of the expediency would have spoken. Since the colonization of the country with German peasants began only at the end of the 13th century and was not completed even after 100 years, the Order would have lacked in the first half century completely, in the whole second century to a large extent the necessary manpower for the agriculture and thus him and his cities of the indispensable subsistence. A more striking proof, however, is the documented fact that from the 13th to the 15th century the Order repeatedly issued charters to the Prussians (Volumes I, II to III, 1 of the Prussian Document Book and the Document Books of the four Prussian bishoprics) and that a large part of the rural population still spoke the Old Prussian language during the entire 16th century.
The main mass of the Prussian population experienced a considerable reduction in their legal and economic status. In the 15th century, with the gradual decline of the social and legal position of the German peasants, a certain rapprochement and merging between them and the Prussian peasants began. Nevertheless, the Old Prussian language was still very widespread in the 16th century among the great mass of the peasant population, especially in Samland. The German village settlement did not penetrate at all into the western Samland, because there sat a closed Prussian population. Also the eastern Samland (up to the Deime) could be penetrated only late and thinly with German village settlements.
When the Reformation was introduced, the German preachers everywhere had to be assisted by special interpreters, the so-called “Tolken”, who translated the German sermon into Old Prussian, just as the translations of the Catechism into Old Prussian, which Duke Albrecht had made in 1545 and 1561, met an urgent need. Only in the course of the 17th century, after the fusion between the Prussians and the Germans had taken place more rapidly during the 16th century with further deterioration of the situation of the German peasants, did the Old Prussian language become extinct. In 1684 Hartknoch mentions that here and there there should still be isolated people who still understand the Old Prussian language (B. Ehrlich , Die alten Preußen , in: Der Ostdeutsche Volksboden, 1926 , p. 266).
Wenzkus explains:
“As recent investigations show, so much land had become desolate through the devastating wars of this period that the Prussian peasants were able to increase their land holdings to such an extent that they now reached the extent of the German peasant land. Since, on the other hand, the situation of the German peasants was now legally worsened by the enforcement of the Schollengebundenheit and greater Scharwerksleistungen, the situation of both population groups became much more similar. This was the prerequisite for the Germanization of the Prussian peasantry, which – already limited to small linguistic islands in the 16th century – had ceased to exist in the 17th century”.
If you want to present the quantitative development of the ethnic group of the Prussians in the context of the forming new tribe of the Prussians until 1740, you cannot avoid extrapolating the growth of the Prussians in the same way as the growth of the various other population groups immigrated to East Prussia and statistically recorded, without taking into account the connubium across population boundaries!
In a separate table, the growth of the Pruzes from 1400 to 1708, the year before the plague of 1709 – 1711, was calculated at an annual growth rate of 0.17%. According to this, the number of Pruzes in 1708 was 228,743 heads (see Appendix 1, Growth of Pruzes). This took into account 6,849 victims in 1656 due to the Tartar invasion.
According to Grenz, 13 towns, 249 villages and 37 churches were burned and destroyed, 23,000 people were slain and 34,000 were dragged away. Most of these unfortunates died of hunger and cold. While Hermanowski reports that in 1656 Tartars invaded the south of the country, Grenz states that the Tartars invaded East Prussia and went as far as Tilsit. The enemy also raged terribly in the main district of Insterburg and infested the town of Gumbinnen. It seems certain that the events also hit the district area of Gumbinnen so hard that it could not recover in the next 50 years.
The annual growth rate of the German colonizers was also estimated at 0.17% for the period from 1400 to 1708. This resulted in 166,312 Germans in 1708. Thereby in 1656 6.849 victims by the Tatar invasion were factored in…
- An annual growth rate of 0.17% was also assumed for the estimated 1,300 Dutch and Scots who immigrated from 1523 onward.
- The 8,000 Huguenots admitted to East Prussia in 1685 also grew at an annual rate of 0.17% according to this model calculation.
- The population of Germans, Dutch, Scots, Huguenots and, according to Schumacher, 500 immigrant Frenchmen thus amounted to 176,911 heads in 1708.
The Mazurian/Polish element in the Prussian tribe can be estimated from several values given in the literature. According to Schumacher, out of a population of about 400,000 in Masuria in 1870, about 80% still spoke Masurian. Polish encyclopedias, on the other hand, under the keyword “Mazowsze pruskie” (Prussian Masovia) , emphasize that in 1870 “75% of the population was still of Polish nationality” and that their number had decreased only “under the pressure of Germanization” (Kossert).
Schumacher informs that in 1739 the king decreed that the German language should also be taught in the Lithuanian and Masurian schools, thus preparing the Germanization of these foreign-speaking parts of the population of East Prussia in a significant way. Thus, it is permissible to increase the proportion of Polish-speaking Masurians around 1800 by a few percentage points compared to 1870. If it were 10 percentage points, one would arrive at 85% of the population with Polish language in Masuria around 1800. Kossert provides a check by publishing a list of the percentages of German and Polish speaking population in the Masurian districts of Johannisburg, Lötzen, Lyck, Oletzko, Sensburg, Ortelsburg, Neidenburg, Osterode in 1825 with an average of 86.2% Polish speaking population.
Gause mentions that the East Prussian population grew to 1,823,000 heads by 1871. From a population table I prepared, the population for 1870 is 1,806,332. 75% of 400,000 inhabitants in Masuria in 1870 are 300,000 inhabitants, 85% leads to a figure of 340,000 heads. 340,000 out of 1,806,332 inhabitants are 18.8% of the East Prussian population. If this percentage is related to the total population of 1708 (= 675,836 inhabitants ), the number of 127,210 Polish speakers can be calculated.
The population structure of Mazury in 1708:
| 85,0 % | Masuria | 127.210 |
| 7,5 % | Germans (estimated) | 11.225 |
| 7,5 % | Prussia (estimated) | 11.224 |
| 149.659 |
This leads to the population structure of East Prussia in 1708:
| 228.743 | Prussia | 33,8 % |
| 166.312 | Deutsche | 24,6 % |
| 10.599 | Dutch, Scots, Huguenots, French | 01,6 % |
| 142.972 | Lithuanians (residual value) | 21,2 % |
| 127.210 | Masuria | 18,8 % |
| 675.836 | 100 % |
An important starting point for the estimation of population figures in East Prussia is the Great Plague of 1709-1711. 10,834 farms were deserted by the plague, of which 8,411 (=77.6%) were in the districts of Insterburg, Tilsit, Ragnit and Memel alone. Thus, the population loss in Prussian-Lithuania due to the plague can be estimated at 77.6% of 235,836 plague victims (Wank gives this number), i.e. 183,092 inhabitants. Assuming a population loss of 80% in Prussian Lithuania due to the plague, the population residing there before the plague in 1708 would have been 228,865 (=33.9% of the total population of East Prussia). Terveen offers data for a control calculation: according to the tax table for the Kingdom of Prussia of 1701, the Prussian-Lithuanian share of the total peasant population of East Prussia was very large. Out of a total of 68,504 East Prussian boys, maids and peasant children, 24,451 worked in Prussian-Lithuania (=35.7%). The 33.9% figure given above takes into account that there was relatively less urban population in Prussian-Lithuania than in all of East Prussia.
The population of Warmia belongs to East Prussia by all calculations, although Warmia had to be ceded to Poland from 1466 to 1772.
According to Hermanowski and Stamm, about 240,000 inhabitants of East Prussia each died as a result of the Great Plague. Based on about 600,000 stated inhabitants of the province, this would have reduced the population of East Prussia to 360,000 heads by the end of 1711. Since Hermanowski in his encyclopedia gives a population of 450,000 in East Prussia for the year 1713, there is a difference of 90,000 inhabitants. Dollinger and Gause also make the same calculation error. Dollinger writes in his tabulation: “1708: Beginning of the plague years in East Prussia (until 1711) , in which about 250,000 of about 600,000 people die”. On the other hand, he lets the reader of the same work know that between 1713 and 1740 the East Prussian population grew by 160000 people to about 600,000 inhabitants. Gause mentions terrible losses suffered by the province , especially its northern part , due to the plague of 1708/-10 – out of about 600,000 people died about 240,000 – and mentions in the next column: “The king had the satisfaction at the end of his laborious life that the population of the province had increased from 440,000 (1713) to 600,000 people.” Thus Dollinger makes his readers think with a difference of 90,000 inhabitants, while Gause is content with a difference of 80,000 inhabitants. Terveen gives 241,171 plague victims and estimates the population of East Prussia before the plague at 600,000. Grenz, however, shows a way out of this confusion of numbers. He reports that of the 600,000 to 700,000 inhabitants in East Prussia, the plague carried off 200,000 to 250,000. Thus it is realistic to calculate 675,836 heads before the plague, using Wank’s plague victim value of 235,836 persons and a population of 440,000 in 1713 (Dollinger, Gause and Schumacher).
Determining the number of victims by the Tartar incursion in 1656 requires a separate calculation:
The population of Prussian-Lithuania and Mazury of the year 1708 are increased to 1656 with the multiplier of 0.9154659 (= -0.17% annually ) recalculated.
| 1708 Prussian-Lithuania | 228.865 | 1656 Prussian-Lithuania | 209.518 |
| 1708 Masuria | 149.659 | 1656 Masuria | 137.008 |
| 1656 Prussian-Lithuania: | 130,886 Lithuanians | 39.316 Deutsche | 39,316 Prussia |
| 1656 Masuria | 116,456 Masuria | 10.276 Deutsche | 10,276 Prussians |
Adoption:
40% of the Tatar invasion victims are at the expense of the Prussian-Lithuanian population
57.000 x 0,40 = 22.800
60% of the Tatar invasion victims are at the expense of the Masurian population
57.000 x 0,60 = 34.200
1656 Prussian-Lithuania:
209,518 – 22,800 = 186,718 (results Tatar loss multiplier of 0.8911788)
| 130.886 | Lithuanians | x 0,8911788 = | 116.643 |
| 39.316 | Deutsche | x 0,8911788 = | 35.038 |
| 39.316 | Prussia | x 0,8911788 = | 35.037 |
1656 Masuria:
137,008 – 34,200 = 102,808 (results Tatar loss multiplier of 0.7503795)
| 116.456 | Masuria | x 0,7503795 = | 87.386 |
| 10.276 | Deutsche | x 0,7503795 = | 7.711 |
| 10.276 | Prussia | x 0,7503795 = | 7.711 |
Losses from the Tartar incursion:
Lithuanians 14,243, Germans 4,278 + 2,565 = 6,843, Prussians 4,279 + 2,565 = 6,844, Masuria 29,070
After the Tatar invasion, the Lithuanian and Polish-speaking population grew from 1656 to 1708 due to a birth surplus and Immigration to the extrapolated values for 1708.
Now through to the effects of population losses the plague in 1709/1711:
| Number of plague victims in Prussian-Lithuania | 183.092 | |
| Number of plague victims in Masuria | 44.307 | |
| Number of plague victims in Koenigsberg | 8.437 | […] |
| Number of plague victims in East Prussia | 235.836 | […] |
1708 Prussian-Lithuania
| 142.972 | Lithuanians | x 0,2 = | 28.594 |
| 42.947 | Deutsche | x 0,2= | 8.590 |
| 42.946 | Prussia | x 0,2= | 8.589 |
| 228.865 – 183.092 | = | 45.773 |
1708 Masuria
| 127.210 | Masuria | x 0,7039469 = | 89.549 |
| 11.225 | Deutsche | x 0,7039469= | 7.902 |
| 11.224 | Prussia | x 0,7039469= | 7.901 |
| 149.659 – 44.307 | = | 105.352 |
1708 Western East Prussia including Königsberg
- 228,743 Prussians less 42,946 Prussians in Pr.-Lit. less 11,224 Prussians in Mas. = 174,573 Prussians
- 176,911 Germans etc. less 42,947 Germans in Pr.-Lit. less 11,225 Germans in Masuria. = 122,739 Germans etc. minus 8,437 plague victims = 114,302 Germans etc..
- Since the Prussians lived mainly in the countryside, no plague victims among the Prussians in Königsberg are taken into account.
This results in the population structure of East Prussia at the end of 1711:
| 28.594 | Lithuanians |
| 89.549 | Masuria |
| 130.794 | Deutsche etc. |
| 191.063 | Prussia |
| 440.000 | resident |
Based on Gause’s data on population statistics, an annual growth rate of 0.51417% can be calculated for the period 1740 – 1816. This includes the losses due to the Seven Years’ War. This value increases to 0.6515% in the following calculations for the period 1711 – 1740. It almost corresponds to the growth of the East Prussian population from 1910 – 1939 (0.6466%). The corresponding growth multiplier is 1.2072215 (see Appendix 2 Back-calculation of the population of East Prussia from 1740 to 1711). The population of East Prussia determined for 1711 thus grows by 1740 as follows:
The population of East Prussia determined for 1711 grows as follows until 1740:
| 28.594 | Lithuanians | x 1,2072215 = | 34.520 | |
| 89.549 | Masuria | x 1,2072215 = | 108.105 | |
| 130.794 | Deutsche etc. | x 1,2072215 = | 157 .897 | |
| 191.063 | Prussia | x 1,2072215 = | 230.655 | |
| 531.177 | resident |
To this number must be added the settlers who were settled in northern East Prussia in the framework of the Re-establishment from 1714 to 1740 under Friedrich Wilhelm I.
I have worked through a related dissertation “Gesamtstaat und Retablissement” published in Göttingen in 1954, which, according to Schumacher, is based on the study of the files of the former State Archives in Königsberg (now Göttingen). The author Terveen, however, is not very specific as far as the numbers of settlers from German territorial states are concerned. In the “Notes” to his work he even writes: “It was not possible and not intended to give a complete overview of all settlement groups in Pr.-Lit. within the framework of the preliminary work. In the evaluation of the foreign settlers it must not be disregarded. The access of foreign colonists is, at least in part, especially qualitatively significant (Magdeburger, Märker !)…”.
Terveen refers to Beheim-Schwarzbach, Hohenzollernsche Kolonisation, and Beheim-Schwarzbach, Friedrich Wilhelm I’s Kolonisationswerk in Litauen.
It is perhaps the greatest fault of Beheim-Schwarzbach’s accounts that he does not sufficiently consider colonization with the Lithuanian-Polish elements. This is the opinion of Skalweit. Moreover, Beheim-Schwarzbach’s works are very much influenced by the idea of “Germanization of Lithuania through the colonizing activities of a Frederick William I”. A sample from page 78, Kolonisationswerk:
“From these precise records we obtain a surprising result, namely: that only the Lithuanian and the German “colonist”, but no actual old German rural population is listed in these districts. The conclusion is obvious that, as in these ten villages, also the composition in the other villages with mixed population may have been, that the colonizations after the years of the plague, for some villages directly, for others indirectly provable, laid the foundation for a lasting, growing Germanization of Lithauen. The list of those ten districts results in the total sum of 2,393 families, of which 1,335 are Lithuanians, thus 1,058 colonist families remain;…”
From 44.2% colonist families and 55.8% Lithuanian Families, Beheim-Schwarzbach derives a Germanization!
Those determined from the literature Colonist settlements after the great plague:
1711
Skalweit states: “As far as we know, in the printed literature there is no mention of that large settlement in the first years after the plague, where, according to the government, by the end of 1711, 4,241 landlords had settled on extinct heirs. Apart from 15 Swiss families, it was only the Lithuanian-Prussian population and Polish influx. This settlement was the largest in size, the cheapest in cost, and the easiest in execution.
According to Skalweit’s calculations, in this period one colonist family can be estimated at an average of 4.5 heads. Accordingly, these families would correspond to a head count of 19,085.
Stahl provides similar information, as he reports that in 1711, 4,620 farms were occupied from the surplus of the native population. This exhausted the access from the native land.
1712 and 1713
are the years of great immigration of Swiss and Germans.
| Mentioned Skalweit | 921 German families | (4.5 heads each = 4,145 people) |
| 318 Swiss families | (4.5 people each = 1,431 people) | |
| 435 Prussians and Lithuanians | (4.5 people each = 1,957 people) |
The 4,145 Germans correspond to the “4,000 souls who made it to Königsberg in 1711 and 1712” mentioned by Skalweit, Terveen, and Stahl. Stahl also names the areas from which the settlers came: Palatinate, Franconia, Anhalt, Brunswick, Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Pomerania, Mark Brandenburg, County Mark. I put the 4,145 persons from 1713 with the growth multiplier 1.1916441 into an immigration table = 4939 persons.
- Skalweit indicates that among the Swiss immigrants in 1712 were many who proved unfit to farm their farms and had to be removed.
- Peasants of other nationalities took their place.
- At the end of April 1713 a tightening of the settlement conditions occurred. Since the extinct farms were for the most part occupied, in the future each settler was to cultivate from his own resources.
1714
- only 21 German families (4.5 persons each = 95 persons) settled according to Skalweit.
- They come with the growth multiplier 1.1839316 into the immigration table = 112 persons.
- Beheim-Schwarzbach mentions 8 Waldensian families near Stallupönen (à 4,5 heads x 1,1839316) = 43 persons.
1715
- According to Skalweit, 55 Reformed families came from the Nassau-Siegenschen = 248 people
- which also mention Grenz and Stahl. the Growth multiplier 1.1762676 results in 292 people
- Another 48 people from Nassau-Siegen mentioned Grenz. with the growth multiplier 1.1762676 is 56 people
In the following years, according to Skalweit, the number of settled farmers came.
1719
- the Swiss colony grew by a few families to 380 families. The 1,710 persons are added to the immigration table from 1719 with the growth multiplier 1.1461077 = 1960 persons.
- This includes Palatines and Nassauers who lived in the Swiss colony.
1720
Palatine families entered the Swiss colony. In the literature there are different statements about this. Beheim-Schwarzbach speaks of 101 Palatines. Grenz lists 101 families who were assigned their residence in the district of Gumbinnen (à 4.5 heads = 455 persons). Skalweit mentions 40 Palatine families who entered the Swiss colony, thus reaching the maximum number of 420 families (40 à 4.5 heads = 180 persons) and 44 Palatine families who arrived in Königsberg with more than 200 persons. From these values I take the maximum value of 455 persons, which come into the immigration table with the growth multiplier 1.1386884, so 518 persons
On the other hand, I exclude 110 Swiss families, respectively 550 souls, about whose immigration Beheim-Schwarzbach reports in 1718 and following years. Skalweit is of the opinion that the immigration was planned, but did not take place.
Also the settlement of Lithuanians did not stop according to Skalweit. But the increase was so small that it was at least outweighed by the peasant exodus, which was particularly strong in those years.
1721 and 1722
The number of foreign colonists sent from Germany to Prussia in 1721 and 1722 was about 500 heads in total. Larger was probably the influx of Lithuanian, Prussian and Polish peasants (Skalweit). Thus, using the growth multiplier of 1.1276446, I place 564 persons in the immigration table.
At the end of 1722 the king wanted to send colonists from the Mark , Pomerania and other provinces compulsorily to East Prussia.
1723
about 2,750 people were sent to East Prussia in this way. In June 1723 , when nearly 500 peasant families had arrived in East Prussia, only 101 families were suitable for settlement (Skalweit). Therefore, I included 455 persons with the growth multiplier 1.1167195 = 508 persons in the immigration table. An edict had to be issued, which promised to protect the subjects from forced dispatch to East Prussia.
- In the conference at Ragnit, Löwensprung said that 400 immigrant families had to be counted on 200 farms, since half were needed for culling (Skalweit).
- According to Skalweit, 1,464 persons emigrated to East Prussia from the Palatinate and Nassau. With the growth multiplier of 1.1167195, that is 1,635 persons.
- People also reported from Hesse-Kassel (estimated 500). The growth multiplier 1.1167195 leads to 558 persons.
- There was also a significant influx from the Polish areas.
- Among the Mennonites settled in the lowlands, the king ordered forced conscriptions for military service in September. After this act of violence, the colony of 1000 souls emigrated (Skalweit). Therefore, Mennonites are not considered in immigration in this work.
1727
the colonization work came to a standstill. However, Skalweit still mentions about 100 families that had been recruited before. But in the following years nothing happened.
- 100 families of 4.5 heads each = 450 persons, so that with the growth multiplier 1.088086 490 persons come into the immigration table.
1731
There are numerous records of desertions. In a meeting and in the regulations for the peasant economy of East Prussia of October 9, 1733, Frederick William I complained that as a result of increasing desertions, it was almost necessary to make a new establishment in order to maintain the population (Terveen).
1734
The number of Salzburgers conducted to Königsberg in 1732 (= 15,508 persons) had decreased to 11,989 in 1734. According to Skalweit, this emerges from the files of the Geh. Staatsarchiv (Gen Dir. Ostpreuß. Mat. Tit. 34 Sect. 9 No. 9). Beheim-Schwarzbach comes to 11,888 Salzburgers for the same period. I include 11,989 Salzburgers with the growth multiplier 1.0397316 in the immigration table = 12,465 persons.
1738
Beheim-Schwarzbach reports that 13 Swiss families of 5 persons each arrived in East Prussia. Skalweit, on the other hand, speaks of 13 Swiss families who, however, did not arrive in the Swiss colony but were settled in Masuria (in Staßwinnen in the district of Lötzen). They proved themselves badly and ran away again except for 4 families. Thus I put 4 families of 4.5 heads each = 18 persons in the immigration table.
1740
- 1,033 souls from Lorraine and Nassau reached East Prussia (Skalweit) = 1033 persons.
- The sum of the values of the immigration table is 25,191 persons. Thus 556,368 settlers are recorded.
- From the 68 Swiss in 1711 and the various items of the immigration table, a number of 281 Swiss families in 1740 can be calculated. This number roughly corresponds to information from Skalweit, who reports that in 1729 the Lithuanian deputation lists 282 landlords as national Swiss.
- From the immigration table it can be deduced that from 1711 – 1740 12,465 Salzburgers, 1,682 Nassauers, 1,335 Palatines, 7,201 settlers of other German tribes, 1,949 Swiss, 516 Lorraineers and 43 Waldensians , a total of 25,191 immigrants came to East Prussia. To reach the population figure of 600,000 heads in 1740 mentioned in the literature, 43,632 settlers are missing, who would have to come from Lithuania or Mazovia.
- Mazovia has 4,841 settlers to increase the percentage of Mazurian speakers (as in 1708) to 18.8%.
The remainder for the Lithuanians is 38,791 settlers. This population must have been reached by immigration or a higher annual growth rate than 0.6515%.
Thus, within the framework of the retablissement of 1711 – 1740 in East Prussia have been settled:
- 25,191 settlers from German territorial states, Salzburgers, Swiss and others = 36.6%.
- 43.632 settlers from Lithuania/ Prussian Lithuania and Mazovia = 63,4 %
- 68,823 settlers =100.0 %.
Skalweit states: “If we want to give a figure for the total number of settlers in Lithuania at the end of the reign of Frederick William I, the figure that Schmoller found in the Gumbin government archives and which refers to the peasant population of 1736 seems to be accurate, namely:
| Salzburger | 766 families |
| Swiss, Nassauer and other Germans | 2,992 families |
| Lithuanians | 8,075 families |
| 11,833 families |
The figures fit well with other results, although it should be noted that the year 1736 is chosen rather early, by 1740 the status had changed quite a bit and especially the number of Salzburgers settled on farms had grown. Accordingly, the Lithuanians are more than twice as numerous as the Salzburgers, Swiss and Germans combined. Schmoller also emphasizes that among the 8,075 Lithuanians there should be many hundreds whom we would call colonists in our modern sense. Our investigation has confirmed this, and it will not be saying too much to call half of them newly settled….” Skalweit adds, “Moreover, it should be noted that only the instantaneous population is given, and not also the large number of extirpated or escaped hosts, who at one time had also been colonists. And the fact that half of the 600 peasant families received farms of poor or runaway landlords on the occasion of the Salzburg immigration proves how large a part these made up.
Let us return to the population table calculated for 1740 (growth from 1711 – l740) and add the immigration values:
| Lithuanians | 34.520 | + | 38.791 | = | 73.311 | 12,2% |
| Masuria | 108.105 | + | 4.841 | = | 112.946 | 18,8% |
| Deutsche etc. | 157.897 | + | 25.191 | = | 183.088 | 30,5% |
| Prussia | 230.655 | = | 230.655 | 38,5% | ||
| 600.000 | 100 % |
As Skalweit expresses, half of the Lithuanians are newly assigned.
Boockmann refers to “many emigrations of Pruzes” during the battles against the Teutonic Order . Baumann writes about the last military leader of the Sudovians, Skurdo, and the rest of his tribe: “With the belongings worth taking and after destruction of their houses by fire, the Sudovians moved to the land of their neighbors, the Lithuanians, to return home some centuries later as “Lithuanian” immigrants”.
Probably also descendants of the Nadrauer and Schalauer, who once fled from the armies of the Order, immigrated as “Lithuanian” immigrants. So we would have a good reason to increase the share of the Prussians in the forming new tribe of Prussians at the expense of the Lithuanians.
I end my attempt to calculate at least roughly the Lithuanian and Masurian share in the Prussian tribe. The share of Germans, Dutch, Scots, Huguenots, French, French Swiss and Salzburgers in the forming new Prussian tribe may have decreased in real terms in 1740, i.e. in favor of the share of Lithuanians, due to the large number of peasant families that were eradicated or escaped. The Prussians, on the other hand, quantitatively represented in a model calculation until 1740, without taking into account the connubium beyond the population borders, form a substantial part of the new tribe of the Prussians!
Harder writes in “Slavs and Balts in Germany”: “On Slavic ethnic basis the German people in the southeast and in the east of its settlement area has won at the entrance into history the new tribes of the Mecklenburgs , Brandenburgs, Thuringians and Saxons (Upper Saxons), Pomeranians and Silesians and finally the Prussians on Prussian basis above all”. The latter is proved by my model calculation.
Literature:
- Baumann, Karl, Die Prußen, Leer 1991
- Beheim-Schwarzbach, M., Hohenzollern Colonization, Leipzig 1874
- Beheim-Schwarzbach, M., Friedrich Wilhelms I. Colonization work in Lithuania, primarily the Salzburg Colony, Koenigsberg 1879
- Boockmann, Hartmut, German History in Eastern Europe, East Prussia and West Prussia, Berlin 1992
- Dollinger, Hans, Preußen, Prisma Verlag 1985
- Gause, Fritz, East Prussia, Burkhard-Verlag
- Grenz, Rudolf, City and District of Gumbinnen, Marburg 1971
- Harder, Hans-Bernd, Germans, Slavs and Balts, Bonn, Cultural Foundation for German Expellees, 1989
- Hermanowski, Georg, East Prussia Lexicon, Augsburg 1998
- Higounet, Charles, The German East Settlement in the Middle Ages, Berlin 1986
- Kossert, Andreas, Masuria East Prussia’s forgotten south, Siedler Verlag, Berlin 2001
- Krockow, Chr.Graf , encounter with East Prussia, Munich 1995
- Schumacher, Bruno, History of East and West Prussia, Würzburg 1959
- Scale wide, A, The East Prussian domain administration under Friedrich Wilhelm I and the Retablissement of Lithuania, Leipzig 1906
- Stahl, F, Nassau farmers and other German Settlers in East Prussia, lists of names from the 18th century, Königsberg (Pr.) 1936
- Stamm, Hans-Ulrich, Ask me about East Prussia, Leer 1974
- Territories Ploetz, History of the German Lands, Ploetz Publishing House, Würzburg 1964
- Terveen, Fritz, General State and Retablissement, Diss. Göttingen 1954
- Wank, Otto, population fluctuation between East Prussia and the neighboring countries from the 16th to the 18th century, Old Prussian Gender Studies, Volume 24, 1994
- Wenskus, Reinhard, The German Order and the Non-German Population of Prussia, in: The German East Settlement of the Middle Ages, ed. by W. Schlesinger, Sigmaringen 1975
Investments:Appendix 1, Prussian growth (0.17% annually; Control factor 10 years: 1.017113)1400 140000 1650 214062 1656 216255 1660 210834 1701 226039 1707 228354 1500 165918 1651 214426 abzgl. 6849 1670 214445 1702 226423 1708 228743 1510 168760 1652 214790 1656 209406 1680 218119 1703 226808 1520 171651 1653 215155 1657 209762 1685 219979 1704 227194 1523 172528 1654 215521 1658 210119 1690 221855 1705 227580 1530 174591 1655 215888 1659 210476 1700 225655 1706 227967 From this you can also see the growth of the other population groups derived.
Annex 2, back calculation of the population of East Prussia from 1740 to 17111740 600000 1735 580831 1730 562275 1725 544311 1720 526922 1715 510088 1739 596116 1734 577072 1729 558635 1724 540788 1719 523511 1714 506786 1738 592258 1733 573336 1728 555019 1723 537288 1718 520123 1713 503506 1737 588424 1732 569625 1727 551427 1722 533810 1717 516756 1712 500247 1736 584615 1731 565938 1726 547858 1721 530355 1716 513411 1711 497009 Examples of growth multipliers:1711 > 1740 1,2072215 1713 > 1740 1,1916441 1723 > 1740 1,1167195 1734 > 1740 1,0397316 |
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