Germany, Your Pomeranians
The former Duchy of Pomerania and the later Prussian province of Pomerania occupied by far the largest part of the former German Baltic coast. It stretched from the Fischland peninsula in the west to the Vistula Lagoon in the east. The area between the island of Wolin and the Vistula Lagoon is now part of the Polish voivodeships of Pomerania and West Pomerania, while the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula, the islands of Rügen and Usedom and the mainland in front of them make up the part of the northeasternmost federal state known as Western Pomerania .
In Germany, people from the coast are generally considered “special.” Whether they are the
East Frisians, the Holsteiners, the Mecklenburgers or the Pomeranians, they all have a reputation for being—putting it cautiously—reserved toward “outsiders.”
Deutschland deine Pommern
His little book, written in 1990, has thankfully recently been reissued by the Hinstorff publishing house in Rostock. Readers will find a refreshing style of storytelling in which Richter affectionately pokes fun at his fellow Pomeranians and offers an entertaining cultural history.
He describes the difference between the “Under-Swedes” and the “Western Kalmyks,” as well as the Pomeranians’ relaxed relationship with alcohol—and with their summer visitors, whom they both love and loathe.
Naturally, the focus is on the people living along the Pomeranian coast. Although the examples he describes come from his youth or from stories told by his ancestors, attentive visitors to today’s Pomeranian coast will often find themselves smiling at how familiar they seem from their own experience. The book can therefore also be used as a kind of “user’s guide” to dealing with Pomeranian hosts on the Baltic Sea.
The book is a fine example of wonderfully vivid language used to describe one of Germany’s many “tribes.”
Hans Werner Richter
Germany, Your Pomeranians
Truths, Lies and Crafty Talk
Paperback, 136 pages
New edition 2015
ISBN 978-3-356-01987-2
€14.99
