Calling getter for id when using AccessType( "field" ) causes proxy initialization. In org.hibernate.proxy.proxy.pojo.BasicLazyInitializer there is the code else if ( isUninitialized() && method.equals(getIdentifierMethod) ) { return getIdentifier(); } However, when using field access, the getIdentifierMethod will be null. I fixed this for us by changing DirectPropertyAccessor by adding a Method attribute to the DirectGetter inner class, and looking up the appropriate getter in the constructor. As far as I can tell, getMethod is only used in two places. In the above case, to the get the identity getter and in PojoComponentTupilizer.isMethodOf. This doesn't seem to break anything. I don't know if this is a clean solution, seems a little hacky to me, however, it would be great if the issue could be fixed somehow. public static final class DirectGetter implements Getter { private final transient Field field; private final Class clazz; private final String name; private Method method; DirectGetter(Field field, Class clazz, String name) { this.field = field; this.clazz = clazz; this.name = name; try { BeanInfo beanInfo = Introspector.getBeanInfo( clazz ); PropertyDescriptor[] pdArray = beanInfo.getPropertyDescriptors(); if ( pdArray != null ) { for (PropertyDescriptor pd : pdArray ) { if ( pd.getName().equals( name ) ) { this.method = pd.getReadMethod(); } } } } catch ( Exception e ) { // ignore } } public Object get(Object target) throws HibernateException { try { return field.get(target); } catch (Exception e) { throw new PropertyAccessException(e, "could not get a field value by reflection", false, clazz, name); } } public Object getForInsert(Object target, Map mergeMap, SessionImplementor session) { return get( target ); } public Method getMethod() { return method; } public String getMethodName() { return method == null ? null : method.getName(); } public Class getReturnType() { return field.getType(); } Object readResolve() { return new DirectGetter( getField(clazz, name), clazz, name ); } public String toString() { return "DirectGetter(" + clazz.getName() + '.' + name + ')'; } }