The Bohm German Geography

If you set out today to locate the little German village of Breitenstein, West Prussia, in which Herman, August, and Friedrich Böhm were born and grew up, you will not find it. Although the community still "exists," it is now part of Poland and it is called Dobino. The main district town, the "county seat" if you will, is no longer called Deutsch Krone but is known by its Polish name, Walcz. Further, you are not likely to find any Bohm ancestors in either community, nor will you find them in any of the surrounding cities or towns. Most people of German ancestry either fled the region or were driven out at the end of World War II as the Soviets pushed back the depleted and demoralized German army as it retreated in tatters toward Berlin.

     Within months of the war's end, the victorious allied powers redrew Germany's eastern borders for the second time in twenty five years. After August 1945 Germany's eastern boundary with Poland was moved westward to the Oder River, effectively incorporating most of Pomerania, and all of West and East Prussia into post-World War II Poland. A small chunk of East Prussia even became part of the Soviet Union. Today it is integrated into the Russian Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. In the process, the District of Deutsch Krone, including the tiny village of Breitenstein became "Polish." Almost all ethnic Germans who had survived the advance of the Soviet army and who remained in these areas were summarily deported. As a result, Deutsch Krone and Breitenstein today have become culturally Polish. Polish place names, many which had not been used for hundreds of years, were reintroduced. Most visible traces of Germans having lived in these regions for hundreds of years were removed.

      And so writing about Breitenstein, where Herman Bohm grew up, means describing a place that on longer exists except as a physical "spot" on the face of the planet. Below are a number of maps that show Deutsch Krone's and Breitenstein's locations as they once were, as well as the Polish communities that have taken their places.

For a larger view of most of the maps below, "mouse over" the image with your cursor. A little hand with a

pointed index finger should appear. When it does, simply right click on the map. To return to the website after

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A twenty first century map showing Waŀcz (formerly the West Prussian administrative town called Deutsch Krone)

and Dobino (formerly Breitenstein) the small agricultural village located about five miles to the southeast.

This detail from an 1812 British map of Germany shows Deutsch Krone and Breitenstein. Interestingly,

it also shows Arnesfelde, Fürstenau, and Zatten, three communities that are part of Lindemann family

history. Ferdinand and Juliana Lindemann and most of their children, including Herman Bohm's wife,

Ida, were originally from the agricultural village of Zatten (sometimes written Setten). Breitenstein,

where Herman grew up, is perhaps only forty five miles from Zatten.

This detail from an 1851 map of West Prussia shows the Deutsch Krone's location. The heavy

dotted line that runs just south of Deutsch Krone is the route of the rail line running from Berlin

to the port of Danzig.

This schematic shows the Deutsch Krone District (Kreis Deutsch Krone), the town of Deutsch Krone itself, as well as the towns and villages of the district, including Breitenstein, in the early twentieth century. The village of Zatten was by this time a part of neighboring Pomerania and not West Prussia.