Jean Georg Haffner (1777 in

Colmar Colmar (, ; Alsatian: ' ; German during 1871–1918 and 1940–1945: ') is a city and commune in the Haut-Rhin department and Grand Est region of north-eastern France. The third-largest commune in Alsace (after Strasbourg and Mulhouse), it is ...

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

– 20 April 1830 in Danzig) was a medical doctor and the founder of the first spa located in

Zoppot Sopot is a seaside resort city in Pomerelia on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in northern Poland, with a population of approximately 40,000. It is located in Pomeranian Voivodeship, and has the status of the county, being the smallest city ...

(Sopot). Johann (Jean) Georg Haffner came to the

Free City of Danzig The Free City of Danzig (german: Freie Stadt Danzig; pl, Wolne Miasto Gdańsk; csb, Wòlny Gard Gduńsk) was a city-state under the protection of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gda ...

in 1808 as a major of Napoleons's

Grande Armée ''La Grande Armée'' (; ) was the main military component of the French Imperial Army commanded by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte during the Napoleonic Wars. From 1804 to 1808, it won a series of military victories that allowed the French Empi ...

. He was garrisoned there with the French army in which he served as a surgeon. In Danzig he married in 1808 Regina Karoline Bruns, widow of Johann Christoph Böttcher. Since 1811 he was practicing in the town as a civil medical doctor too. He was also running a swimming bath. In addition, he carried out injections against

cowpox Cowpox is an infectious disease caused by the ''cowpox virus'' (CPXV). It presents with large blisters in the skin, a fever and swollen glands, historically typically following contact with an infected cow, though in the last several decades more ...

. When the French troops withdrew from the region in 1814, Haffner remained in Danzig. In 1823 Haffner obtained the license and the exclusive right to establish and operate a spa type of seaside resort in Zoppot from the

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

n authorities. The land along the beach, which was needed to realize the project, was handed over to him on the basis of hereditary leasehold. He built and financed himself a spa hotel and a number of bath pavilions. The spa type of recreation and health centre founded by him had triggered off Zoppot's later development into a famous and noble spa resort.

Literature

* ''Altpreußische Biographie'' (Christian Krollmann, ed.), vol.1, 1941, p. 305. {{DEFAULTSORT:Haffner, Jean Georg 1777 births 1830 deaths People from Colmar French military personnel of the Napoleonic Wars