Qualla: Potato Germans

Potato Germans: Introduction

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simaron from Lower Saxony, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0. One of the colonists left behind a line that says everything about the gap between what was promised and what arrived: they had come expecting prosperity, and found heather reaching to the waist. That is Alheden in the 1760s - the great heath of central Jutland, an ocean of low scrub that Danish farmers had spent centuries declining to plough. Into it, between 1759 and 1763, walked 965 people from 265 German-speaking families, recruited by a king who wanted the heath turned into farmland and had run out of Danes willing to try. They are remembered as the Kartoffeltyskerne, the Potato Germans, and their story is neither a triumph nor a joke, though it has sometimes been told as both.

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Image: Simaron from Lower Saxony, Germany | CC BY-SA 2.0

Potato Germans: The Offer

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The idea came from the economist Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi, who in 1758 recommended that the Danish crown develop the Jutland heath. King Frederik V of Denmark-Norway made the invitation and made it generous: farmland with livestock and equipment, money to start with, twe...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Potato Germans: What the Heath Actually Was

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Josef Theodor Hansen, Public domain. Alheden lies in the southernmost part of Fjends and the northernmost part of Lysgård, covering the ground where Frederiks, Grønhøj, Havredal and Karup stand today. The soil was thin, acidic, and matted with heather roots. Working it required first burning the heather off, then fi...

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Image: Josef Theodor Hansen | Public domain

Potato Germans: The Crop That Named Them

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Agence Rol. Agence photographique (commanditaire), Public domain. The potato is the reason the survivors survived. Once the heather was burned off, the sandy ground turned out to suit potatoes rather well, and the Germans knew how to grow and eat them. Their Danish neighbours, at the time, largely did not - the potato was regarded as something ...

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Image: Agence Rol. Agence photographique (commanditaire) | Public domain

Potato Germans: German for Another Century

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CelticBrain, CC BY-SA 4.0. What is striking is how long the colony stayed itself. The state built Frederiks Church in 1766, set between the settlements of Frederikshøj - now Grønhøj - and Frederikshede, now Havredal, to serve the German community. Sermons there were preached in German until 1870. The colon...

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Image: CelticBrain | CC BY-SA 4.0

Potato Germans: The Names That Stayed

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Calvin, Public domain. The clearest surviving trace is in the phone book. Agricola, Betzer, Bitsch, Bräuner, Bärthel, Cramer, Dickes, Dürr, Frank, Gantzhorn, Harritz, Herbel-Schmidt, Hermann, Herold, Jung, Keller, Krath, Kriegbaum, Lajer, Lauth, Marcher, Marquard, Maul, Morratz, Philbert, Rost, Schönhe...

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Image: Calvin | Public domain