Jean Georg Haffner

Who was Jean Georg Haffner?

Jean Georg Haffner was a medical doctor and the founder of the first spa located in Sopot.

Johann Georg Haffner came in 1808 together with Napoleons's Grande Armée to the Free City of Danzig. He was garrisoned there with the French army in which he served as a surgeon in the rank of a major. In Danzig he married in 1808 Regina Karoline Bruns, widow of Johann Christoph Böttcher. Since the year of 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. When the French troops withdrew from the region in 1814, Haffner remained in Danzig.

On his request Haffner obtained in 1823 from the Prussian authorities the license and the exclusive right to establish and to operate in Zoppot a spa type of seaside resort. 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.