The Scottish diaspora and their role in making of modern Germany

The letter was addressed to the authorities in the great Hanseatic ports of Hamburg and Lübeck stating that Scotland was open for business once again having defeated the English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

Later, during the 16th and 17th centuries it is possible that more Scots went to the Baltic lands of Northern Germany, Prussia and Poland and from there eastwards into Lithuania and Russia than took part in the massive plantation and settlement of Ulster.

Yet it remains very much a forgotten diaspora, except among historians of the region. In the History Of The District Of Deutsch Krone, written at the turn of the 20th century, the German historian F Schmidt described the legacy in the character of the people: “The increase in strength and industrial capacity which this Scottish admixture instilled into the German was of the very highest importance, and it can scarcely be doubted that the peculiar compound of stubbornness and shrewdness which characterises the inhabitants of the small towns of Eastern Prussia has its roots in the natural disposition of the Scot.”

READ MORE: How locals of one Scottish town earned their 'gable endies' nickname

So that’s us getting the blame for the Prussian mentality which would cause a bit of bother across Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries…

Across the area, an ethnic and political patchwork of Germans and Poles, the Scots organised themselves into a self-help society called the Scottish Brotherhoods, with branches in every major city of a vast region which comprised provinces of Germany and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The Green Book of Lublin for example, had detailed accounts of this prestigious organisation and was written in Scots, German and Polish.

The legacy of the wealthy Scottish merchants is still visible today in the north east of Scotland – in the case of Marischal College, from wealthy Protestant Scots in the Baltic ports who sent money home.

One of them, the Danzig merchant Robert Gordon donated funds to Marischall and for the college named after him which eventually became the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

One of my favourite Scottish castles, Craigievar, also benefited from wealth generated by Sir William Danzig Willie Forbes, while the masterpieces in Gdansk’s art galleries were donated by Jacob Kabrun or Cockburn, and one of the most poignant coffin paintings in the Poznan/Posen museum is of a fair headed, three-year-old boy, commissioned by his father, the merchant Robert Farquhar.

Our first travel writer Sir William Lithgow “found abundance of gallant rich merchants, my countreymen” all over the region.

More typical than the merchants though were the hundreds of lads who shouldered pedlars packs and set off into the countryside to hawk everything from pins and needles to the finest linen.

So many boarded ship for ports like Danzig and Königsberg that Lithgow deemed Poland “a Mother and Nurse for the youth and younglings of Scotland”, reckoning there were 30,000 Scottish families in the country at the time.

In Polish society, trade was despised by the gentry, beyond the reach of the peasantry and very much in the hands of foreigners – principally the German Bürger who controlled trade within the towns, the Jews and the Scots. Both were accused of undermining the trade of the German merchants.

In the Scots case, this was by means of the Scots pedlars who bypassed the towns and sold directly to the people living in the vast country areas surrounding the urban conurbations.

The Jews and Scots were frequently grouped together as people to tax, and to look down upon. The German craft guilds in Prussian cities like Königsberg saw the Scots travellers usurping their trade.

The tone of their complaint to the Duke of Prussia is typical: “the Scots skim the cream off the milk of the country.” Given what happened later to the Jews, it is also chillingly familiar. “These people have like a cancerous ulcer, grown and festered.”

So common were they that the German word Schotte covered both pedlars and natives of Scotland, while they appeared in the native folklore as the bogeyman.

In German, proverbial sayings used to frighten naughty children included – “Warte bis der Schotte kommt” – “Wait till the Scot comes and gets ye!”

Eventually the pedlars settled down in Scottish merchant quarters such as Old Scotland in Danzig/Gdansk, Scotlandsyde in Memel and the Scots Vennel in Stralsund. Unlike Jews, as Christians they could marry local girls and were gradually absorbed into German and Polish society.

Prestigious names from this Scottish diaspora include Jan Johnston, the Polish philosopher of the 17th century, Tadeusz Baird the 20th century Polish composer, and the German philosopher Emmanuel Kant.

They were joined by another sizeable group of men, with a very different calling – soldiers of fortune.

READ MORE: Scots invited to first national day of remembrance for accused witches

With the Anglo-Scottish border peaceful for the first time after 1603, James VI actively encouraged foreign potentates to recruit foot soldiers in Scotland. Many originated in the Catholic and Episcopalian heartlands of the north east.

Patrick Gordon’s diary describes an Eastern Europe thrang with Scots mercenaries.

Again, they helped one another. When the Poles defeated the Russians at the Battle of Czudno, the victorious Lord Henry Gordon captured Colonel Daniel Crawford who “was not only maintained by him at a plentifull table in Varso, but dismissed ransome free, and gave him a pass for a capitaine of horse”.

An appropriate epitaph for all the Scots soldiers of fortune who survived the religious wars of 17th century Europe is provided by the Electress of Hanover referring to her commander of troop Andrew Melville.

“Soldier of Misfortune, I call him, for cannon shot has taken away his chest which is supported by an iron contraption ... I believe the Scots are not descended from Adam but from the serpent ... you cut them up into 16 pieces and they join together again!”

In Germany, in the later 18th and 19th centuries, it was the wild landscape and the perceived “noble savage” ideals of the Scottish people which attracted the intellectuals – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe himself translated James McPherson’s Ossian and incorporated passages from it into his early success Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers – The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Later, the same cult of Ossian brought Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy to visit Scotland and see for himself the wonder of Fingal’s Cave in Staffa which inspired him to write his moving overture called The Hebrides Or Fingal’s Cave.

German aristocrats, intellectuals and writers like Theodor Fontane flocked to Scotland to see the Trossachs and Loch Katrine made famous in Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady Of The Lake and the Highlands of his novel Waverley.

Both had become classical landscapes for literarary pilgrims in search of Die Blaue Ferne – the far blue yonder of romantic longing. This was really the beginning of the tourist industry in Scotland, so that is another legacy of long pedigree arising out of this incredible period of Caledonian literary creativity.

Another Scottish sphere of influence in the German speaking lands took place in the south of the country in Bavaria and in what is now Austria and Switzerland where early Christianity was brought to the region in the seventh century by Celtic missionaries who established a series of Schottenklöster – or Scottish cloisters – from Vienna to Regensburg and from St Gallen to Erfurt.

Later some of these ancient monastic settlements developed into Scots Colleges – colleges where Scottish Catholics were educated after the Reformation. In German towns like Erfurt, Würzburg and Regensburg, Scottish savants like George Andrew Gordon and James Gallus Robertson thrived until well into the 18th century.

Tom McInally author of the book The Sixth Scottish University, The Scots Colleges Abroad: 1575 to 1799 argues that before the dramatic surge of the Scottish universities in the first half of the 18th century, the Scots Colleges in Europe offered a better education than what was on offer at home. The Abbey of St James at Ratisbon/Regensburg which had educated notable Scottish Catholics like Sir John Ogilvie was still in existence as late as 1862.

In the west of the country at the University of Cologne, the Scottish influence can be traced back to the great philosopher John Duns Scotus, who lectured there and died in the city in 1308.

A very contemporary expression of Scottish culture in that city is provided by the supporters of FC Köln where the whole stadium sings the club anthem magnificently to the tune of The Bonnie Bonnie Banks Of Loch Lomond due to the success of the band Runrig and its version of the song in that part of Germany.

One other cultural link which is slightly older but definitely enduring is the poem by the great 19th century German writer Theodor Fontane, Die Brück’ am Tay – The Bridge On The Tay, inspired by the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879.

It is written in a dramatic ballad style which begins with a fey appearance by the malevolent witches we remember from Shakespeare’s Scottish play.

German children are taught to recite the ballad in school and if you go on Youtube you can see several excellent films of the poem read by children and adults.