Grønhøj

Facts

Potato Germans

By Henning Ringgaard Lauridsen , Cand.mag. i historie og dansk fra Aarhus Universitet (8 stories)

King Frederik V wanted the sparsely populated heathland of Jutland to be colonised. He therefore rounded up a large number of South German wine growers and persuaded them to move to the area in 1758. Eighty-eight of the families settled on the rolling heath called Alheden, where the state built farms for them in the villages of Grønhøj and Havredal with military precision. The fields belonging to the farms were divided into uniform plots out on the heath, and Frederik's Church was built precisely midway between the two villages. Unfortunately, the attempt to colonise the area was a right royal fiasco that cost the state a monstrous amount of money. A small museum beside Grønhøj Inn describes the sad tale of the German immigration project.

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Barren soil

Story written by Henning Ringgaard Lauridsen

Time / Periode 1759

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The German families came to Central Jutland with great expectations, imagining a rich and welcoming country. Instead, they were met by hostile residents who wanted the heath for themselves. The integration process was long and painful. The Germans kept to themselves with their own church and schools and continued to speak German to each other. To make matters worse, the soil was almost barren. Potatoes were the only crop that the immigrants managed to cultivate in the heath soil and the fruits of these labours were sold at the town square in Viborg. Potatoes became the trademark for the immigrants to such an extent that their nickname, Potato Germans", quickly became firmly rooted. "