The Swabian children (German: Schwabenkinder) were peasant children from poor families in the Alps of Austria and Switzerland who went to find work on farms in Upper Swabia and the Swabian Jura. Usually they were sent by their parents to become seasonal workers. They were taken in spring and brought to the child markets in Germany, mainly in Upper Swabia, where they would be purchased or "rented" by farmers for the season. This use of children as workers was most widespread in the 19th century.
The march over the Alps to Germany proved often difficult and exhausting. Usually their guide was a priest, who was also responsible for ensuring the children had a warm stable to sleep in.
The marches were large, organised groups of several thousand children, taken over the snow-covered mountains often still dressed in rags. It was not uncommon for five and six-year-old children to be taken.
The American press began a campaign in 1908 exposing the Swabian children, describing the child market in Friedrichshafen as a "barely concealed slave market".
The child markets were abolished in 1915, yet the trade of children did not end completely until compulsory schooling for foreign children was introduced in Württemberg in 1921.
Many immigration certificates from Swabia show surnames typical of Tyrol and other regions the children were taken from (e.g. Braxmeier from Braxmarer).
The movie is based on the novel "Die Schwabenkinder – Die Geschichte des Kaspanaze" ("The Swabian Children – The Story of Kaspanaze") by Elmar Bereuter[de] ( ISBN3-7766-2304-7).
Film synopsis: After his mother is killed in an avalanche, the farmer boy Kaspar is sent by his struggling father to work in Swabia. Together with other children from the village, their guide (Tobias Moretti) brings the group to the child market at Ravensburg. There the miraculous story begins: The brutal treatment of the boy by the farmer, his escape, emigration to the United States, and final home coming to his village many years later to visit his dying father.
The Hohenstaufen dynasty, also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynasty's most prominent rulers – Frederick I (1155), Henry VI (1191) and Frederick II (1220) – ascended the imperial throne and also reigned over Italy and Burgundy. The non-contemporary name of 'Hohenstaufen' is derived from the family's Hohenstaufen Castle on the Hohenstaufen mountain at the northern fringes of the Swabian Jura, near the town of Göppingen. Under Hohenstaufen rule, the Holy Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent from 1155 to 1268.
Swabia is one of the seven administrative regions of Bavaria, Germany.
The history of Baden-Württemberg covers the area included in the historical state of Baden, the former Prussian Hohenzollern, and Württemberg, part of the region of Swabia since the 9th century.
The Swabian Jura, sometimes also named Swabian Alps in English, is a mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, extending 220 km (140 mi) from southwest to northeast and 40 to 70 km in width. It is named after the region of Swabia.
Swabian is one of the dialect groups of Alemannic German that belong to the High German dialect continuum. It is mainly spoken in Swabia, which is located in central and southeastern Baden-Württemberg and the southwest of Bavaria. Furthermore, Swabian German dialects are spoken by Caucasus Germans in Transcaucasia. The dialects of the Danube Swabian population of Hungary, the former Yugoslavia and Romania are only nominally Swabian and can be traced back not only to Swabian but also to Franconian, Bavarian and Hessian dialects, with locally varying degrees of influence of the initial dialects.
Alemannic, or rarely Alemannish, is a group of High German dialects. The name derives from the ancient Germanic tribal confederation known as the Alamanni.
Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of the German stem duchies, representing the territory of Alemannia, whose inhabitants interchangeably were called Alemanni or Suebi.
Altshausen is a small Swabian municipality with around 4,100 inhabitants, near the city of Ravensburg in Baden-Württemberg, in southern Germany.
Ravensburg is a city in Upper Swabia in Southern Germany, capital of the district of Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg.
Hard is a town in the west of the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg, directly on the southern shores of Lake Constance. Hard's attractions include the Strandbad and the Grünerdamm. Hard is also known for its skatepark.
The Danube Swabians is a collective term for the ethnic German-speaking population who lived in various countries of central-eastern Europe, especially in the Danube River valley, first in the 12th century, and in greater numbers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Most were descended from earlier 18th-century Swabian settlers from Upper Swabia, the Swabian Jura, northern Lake Constance, the upper Danube, the Swabian-Franconian Forest, the Southern Black Forest and the Principality of Fürstenberg, followed by Hessians, Bavarians, Franconians and Lorrainers recruited by Austria to repopulate the area and restore agriculture after the expulsion of the Ottoman Empire. They were able to keep their language and religion and initially developed strongly German communities in the region with German folklore. Thousands also came from Eastern Europe.
Otto I was the Duke of Swabia from 973 and Duke of Bavaria from 976. He was a member of the Ottonian dynasty, the only son of Duke Liudolf of Swabia and his wife Ida, and thus a grandson of the Emperor Otto I and his Anglo-Saxon wife Eadgyth. His sister Mathilde was the abbess of Essen Abbey.
The Duchy of Swabia was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German Kingdom. It arose in the 10th century in the southwestern area that had been settled by Alemanni tribes in Late Antiquity.
Tobias Moretti is an Austrian actor.
Swabians are a Germanic people who are native to the ethnocultural and linguistic region of Swabia, which is now mostly divided between the modern states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, in southwestern Germany.
Casimirof Brandenburg-Bayreuth was Margrave of Bayreuth or Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach from 1515 to 1527.
The Satu Mare Swabians or Sathmar Swabians are a German ethnic group in the Satu Mare region of Romania. They are one of the few Danube Swabian subgroups that are actually Swabian, and their dialect, Sathmar Swabian, is similar to the other varieties of the Swabian German dialect.
Burchard II was the Hunfriding Duke of Swabia and Count of Raetia. He was the son of Burchard I of Swabia and Liutgard of Saxony.
The Bussen is a mountain in southern Germany, in the region of Upper Swabia, with an elevation of 767 metres. It is also known as the Holy Mountain of Upper Swabia. It is situated on the border between the Swabian Alb and Upper Swabia proper. Being one of the most visited places of pilgrimage in Upper Swabia, it also has views as far as the Alps more than 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the south.
Swabian cuisine is native to Swabia, a region in southwestern Germany comprising great parts of Württemberg and the Bavarian part of Swabia, as well as the Allgäu which has parts lying in Austria. Swabian cuisine has a reputation for being rustic, but rich and hearty. Fresh egg pastas, soups, and sausages are among Swabia's best-known types of dishes, and Swabian cuisine tends to require broths or sauces; dishes are rarely "dry".
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