QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Leaving home

Once the decision was made to emigrate, a family would have had to apply for release from Prussian citizenship and an emigration permit, sell their property, organise their affairs and make their way to Hamburg, writes Lyn Spriggs of her own forebears’ journey. Official permission to leave Prussia was required, and obtaining an emigration permit from the government was not necessarily straightforward. The usual process was to appear before the district administration and declare a desire to emigrate to Australia, requesting a release from citizenship. A legally-valid declaration of the renunciation of citizenship was required and often there was an announcement of the impending emigration in a newspaper. A passport had to be obtained, and the government required proof that the applicant had sufficient means to meet the cost of the journey (the latter became easier after Australian colonies began providing assistance for emigrants). A requirement to participate in compulsory military training meant young men under 20 had to get special permission since they had not yet served their time in the army. Many single men in their early 20s emigrated by clandestine means to avoid conscription. The bureaucracy also needed to know that the emigrant had paid all debts prior to leaving, and that any under-age emigrants had sufficient protection by accompanying adults. Various sources report the unassisted fare around 1853-4 was 100 thalers (where 1 thaler represented a day’s wages) or 141 thalers. A contemporary Emigrant’s Guide (1848) recommended to British migrants the necessity of turning “the entire of the worldly goods, household … of the intending emigrant into hard cash; furniture, beds, and all such things would be cumbrous and expensive… The means of all, small or great, should be con veyed out in a tangible shape, in money.” They were urged to choose a ship that ‘is regularly trading with the colony’ and a captain ‘who has been some time in the vessel’. The notion was that an experienced captain on regular voyages was more likely to ‘preserve the character of his ship’. No doubt similar recommendations also applied to German emigrants.

Gathering from around the Uckermark and other regions in Brandenburg and Prussia meant a first journey of around 500-600km to Bremerhaven or Hamburg. Prior to 1846, this would probably have been undertaken on river barges – along the Oder, Spree, Havel and Elbe – taking up to three weeks. After the completion of the Berlin to Hamburg railways in 1846, this could be accomplished in days rather than weeks. In 1852, lowered fares for emigrants allowed more to travel by train. Their transportation may also have been organised by a migration agent, such as J C Heussler. Bremen had established itself as the leading emigrant port in northern Europe by sending numerous emigration agents into its hinterland to solicit business, and by demonstrating concern for the welfare of emigrants. It took initiatives to deal with emigrants’ complaints about exploitation by ship’s captains, agents and lodging-housekeepers, including regulations to inspect lodging-houses and ships, their food stocks and insurance. From 1837, Hamburg authorities also began to regulate emigrant shipping, setting out the amount of space each passenger was entitled, size of bunks and quantity of provisions for a voyage.

Top: Passport granted to Gottfried Ludwig Tesch from Günterberg. Image (12-158-1) courtesy State Library of Queensland

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