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Ostsiedlung (, ) is the term for the early medieval and high medieval migration of Germanic peoples and Germanisation of the areas populated by Slavs, Balts and Uralic languages peoples; the most settled area was known as Germania Slavica. Germanisation efforts included eastern parts of Francia, East Francia, and the Holy Roman Empire and beyond; and the consequences for settlement development and social structures in the areas of settlement. Other regions were also settled, though not as heavily. The Ostsiedlung encompassed multiple modern and historical regions, primarily Germany east of the Saale and Elbe rivers, the states of Lower Austria and Styria in Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic, but also in other parts of Central and Eastern Europe.
The majority of Ostsiedlung settlers moved individually, in independent efforts, in multiple stages and on different routes. Many settlers were encouraged and invited by the local princes and regional lords, who sometimes even expelled part of the indigenous populations to make room for German settlers.
Smaller groups of migrants first moved to the east during the early Middle Ages. Larger treks of settlers, which included scholars, monks, missionaries, craftsmen and artisans, often invited, in numbers unverifiable, first moved eastwards during the mid-12th century. The military territorial conquests and punitive expeditions of the Ottonian dynasty and Salian dynasty emperors during the 11th and 12th centuries do not form part of the Ostsiedlung, as these actions didn't result in any noteworthy settlement establishment east of the Elbe and Saale rivers. The Ostsiedlung is considered to have been a purely Medieval event as it ended in the beginning of the 14th century. The legal, cultural, linguistic, religious and economic changes caused by the movement had a profound influence on the history of Eastern Central Europe between the Baltic Sea and the Carpathians until the 20th century.
In the 20th century, accounts of the Ostsiedlung were heavily exploited by German nationalists (including the Nazism) "The Slippery Memory of Men": The Place of Pomerania in the Medieval Kingdom of Poland (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450), by Paul Milliman. Brill: Leiden, 2013, p. 2 – "There is a huge literature on this topic in Polish and German, which was until recently lumped together with a whole host of other topics (including the peaceful settlement in East Central Europe of Germans and other western Europeans, who had been invited by Slavic lords) as the Drang nach Osten. Because of this term's associations with nineteenth-century nationalism and twentieth-century Nazism, it has for the most part been scrapped, only to be replaced by the deceptively benign 'Ostsiedlung' or the even more problematical 'Ostkolonisation...' ...." to press the territorial claims of Germany and to demonstrate supposed German superiority over non-Germanic peoples, whose cultural, urban and scientific achievements in that era were undermined, rejected, or presented as German.The Slippery Memory of Men (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450) by Paul Milliman p. 2.Jan M. Piskorski: "The historiography of the so-called 'east colonisation' and the current state of research" in: The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways ...: Festschrift in Honor of Janos M.Bak Hardcover Balázs Nagy (Editor), Marcell Sebok (Editor) pp. 654, 655. The Holocaust as Colonial Genocide: Hitler's 'Indian Wars' in the 'Wild East' – p. 38; Carroll P. Kakel III – 2013: "Within National Socialist discourse, the Nazis purposefully and skillfully presented their eastern colonization project as a 'continuation of medieval Ostkolonisation eastern, celebrated in the language of continuity, legacy, and colonial grandeur". After World War I (1914–1918), the fact that German Empire and Austria-Hungary lost part of their territories in the East appeared as a counterpoint to Ostsiedlung because some of the Germans in the East became foreign citizens when their homes were no longer part of Germany and Austria. The Germans in the East outside Germany and Austria were partially forced to leave and the regions that Germany and Austria lost in the East were dominated by non-German peoples, so the German loss here was not as severe as after World War II.
In and after World War II (1944–1950), Germans were driven out and deported to rump Germany from the East and their language and culture were lost in most areas (including the German-dominated lands which Germany lost after this war) in which German people had settled during the Ostsiedlung; except part of Eastern Austria and especially Eastern Germany.
This was the earliest recorded and planned "eastern policy" under Charlemagne, who wanted to protect the eastern border of the Frankish Empire, and also wanted to solidify his position in the east by declaring war on the Obotrites and Veleti in the North, as well as on the Sorbs (east of Thuringia) and Czech tribal princes. However, since the goal wasn't to establish an ethnic and linguistic boundary between the Slavs and Germanic peoples tribes, Slavic settlement continued in Thuringia and Northern Bavaria, with individual Slavs even making it to the Rhine basin.
The tribes that populated these marches were generally unreliable allies of the Empire, and successor kings led numerous, yet not always successful, military campaigns to maintain their authority.
In 843, the Carolingian Empire was partitioned into three independent kingdoms as a result of dissent among Charlemagne's three grandsons over the continuation of the custom of partible inheritance or the introduction of primogeniture.
Under the rule of King Louis the German and Arnulf of Carinthia, the first groups of civilian Catholic Church settlers were led by Franks and Bavarii to the lands of Pannonia (present-day Burgenland, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia).
In a series of punitive actions, large territories in the northeast between the Elbe, Saale, Naab rivers in the west and the Oder, Bober, Kwisa and Vltava rivers in the east were conquered (see also: Battle on the Raxa), and border marches were established in these areas. Fortifications were occupied and new castles built, reinforced by military units to exert military control and collect tributes. Christianization was limited to the establishment of mission dioceses such as Lübeck, Brandenburg or Havelberg. The development of a parish church system only took place after the settlement of German colonists, beginning in the 2nd half of the 12th century. Control over areas that had already been conquered was repeatedly lost. The Slavic revolt of 983 and an uprising of the Obotrites in 1066 had particularly serious consequences.
The Margravate of Meissen and Transylvania were populated by German settlers, beginning in the 12th century. From the end of the 12th century onwards, monasteries and cities were established in Pomerania, Brandenburg, Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia and eastern Austria. In the Baltics, the Teutonic Order founded a crusader state in the beginning of the 13th century.
Although the first settlers had already arrived in 1124, being mostly of Flemish people and Dutch people origin, they settled south of the Eider river, followed by the conquest of the land of the Wagri in 1139, the founding of Lübeck in 1143 and the call by Count Adolf II of Schauenburg to settle in Eastern Holstein, and Pomerania in the same year.
Weakened by ongoing internal conflicts and constant warfare, the independent Wendish territories finally lost the capacity to provide effective military resistance. From 1119 to 1123, Pomerania invaded and subdued the northeastern parts of the Lutici lands. According to Kantzow, in 1124 and 1128, Wartislaw I, Duke of Pomerania, at that time a vassal of Poland, invited bishop Otto of Bamberg to Christianize the Pomeranians and Liutizians of his duchy. In 1147, as a campaign of the Northern Crusades, the Wendish Crusade was mounted in the Duchy of Saxony to retake the marches lost in 983. The crusaders also headed for Pomeranian Demmin and Szczecin, despite these areas having already been successfully Christianized. The Crusade caused widespread devastation and slaughter.
After the Wendish crusade, Albert the Bear was able to establish and expand the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1157 on approximately the territory of the former Northern March, which since 983 had been controlled by the Hevelli and Lutici tribes. The Bishopric of Havelberg, that had been occupied by revolting Lutici tribes was reestablished to Christianize the Wends.
In 1164, after Saxon duke Henry the Lion finally defeated rebellious Obotrites and Pomeranian dukes in the Battle of Verchen. The Pomeranian duchies of Demmin and Stettin became Saxon fiefs, as well as the Obodrite territories, which became Mecklenburg, named after the Obotrites residential capital, Mecklenburg Castle. After Henry the Lion lost his internal struggle with Emperor Frederick I, Mecklenburg and Pomerania became fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire in 1181, although the latter briefly as it passed under Danish suzerainty in 1185, and then under Imperial again only in the 13th century.
The Teutonic State established a comprehensive administrative structure, and modernized the old traditional tribal structure of the region. An integral part of the Order other than converting Slavic paganism to Christianity was also to encourage Germans to settle the sparsely populated area. Most German settlers primarily went to urban cities, such as Graudenz (Grudziądz), Elbing (Elbląg), and Riga. The settlers also established numerous rural settlements, known as Vorwerke in Germany. Most of the settlers came from the Rhineland region. The Teutonic Order established numerous Castles, and other holdings near populated places such as Königsberg to consolidate the conquered lands. While East Prussia was heavily settled and Germanized, Livonia still had a very small German population, because there were no attempts to settle inland. The Germans in Livonia were mainly employees of the Teutonic Order there for administrative purposes, or merchants of the Hanseatic League who settled coastal towns.
When Stephen I married Gisela of Bavaria, many German knights came to Hungary, joining its military. They were often rewarded with large estates and entry into the nobility. In 1224, Andrew II signed a charter laying out the duties and rights of the Germans in the kingdom. The king defined their duties such as the payment of tax, military service, and housing of the king and his officials. In exchange, they were able to elect their priests and officials independently and their merchants were exempt from customs duties. Their markets were also not taxed. No outsider was allowed to receive villages or estates in German land where only the monarch and the Count of Hermannstadt had jurisdiction.
There is no doubt that there were "rather numerous German settlers" in Eastern Central who were responsible for bringing German law in the earliest stages of the colonization. Other settlers included Walloons, Jews, Dutch, Flemish, and later Poles, especially in the territory of modern Ukraine. The Germans and the East, Charles W. Ingrao, Franz A. J. Szabo, Jan Piskorski, Medieval Colonization in Europe, pp. 31–32, Purdue University Press, 2007 "The sources leave no doubt that rather numerous German settlers arrived into many areas of East Central Europe and that particularly in the earliest period of eastern colonization the so-called German law was introduced above all by immigrants from the German lands. This particularly affected the territory between the Elbe and the Oder, Western Pomerania, Prussia, western Poland, the Czech lands (and especially Moravia), Carinthia and Transylvania."
The migration of the Walser in the territory of present-day Switzerland to areas that had formerly been inhabited by Ancient Rome. The Walser settlers left their homes in Valais and founded villages in the uplands of the Alp valleys (in the north of Italy and in the Grisons).
The new settlers not only brought their customs and language with them, but also new technical skills and equipment that were adapted within a few decades, especially in agriculture and crafts. These included:
The amount of cultivated land increased as large forested areas were cleared. The extent of land increase differed by region. In Silesia it had doubled (16% of the total area) by the beginning of the 11th century, 30% in the 16th century and the highest increase rates in the 14th century, the total area of arable land increased seven – to twentyfold in many Silesian regions during the Ostsiedlung.
Parallel to agricultural innovations new forms of farm layout and settlement structuring (division and classification of land) were introduced. Farmland was divided into Hufen, (English hides) and larger villages replaced the previously dominant type of small villages consisting of four to eight farms as a complete transformation of the previous settlement structure occurred. The cultural landscape of East Central Europe formed by the medieval settlement processes essentially prevails until today.
Experienced and skilled hydraulic engineers, they were in high demand at the settlements of the as yet undeveloped areas east of the Elbe. The land was drained by creating a network-like structure of smaller drainage ditches that drained the water in main ditches. Roads connecting the settlers' individual farms ran along these main trenches.
Dutch settlers were recruited by the local rulers in large numbers, especially during the second half of the 12th century. In 1159/60, for example, Albert the Bear granted Dutch settlers the right to take possession of former Slavic settlements. The preacher Helmold of Bosau reported on this in his Slavic chronicle: "Finally, when the Slavs were gradually dispersing, he (Albrecht) sent to Utrecht and the Rhine region, and also to those who live by the ocean, who under the power of the sea had suffered, the Dutch, Zealanders and Flemings, where he attracted a lot of people and let them live in the castles and villages of the Slavs."
In the 12th and 13th century documents, the Ard without a mouldboard is mentioned. It tear opens the soil and spreads the soil to both sides without turning it. It is therefore particularly suitable for light and sandy subsoil. In the mid 13th century, the Three-field system was introduced east of the Elbe. This new cultivation method required the use of the heavy mouldboard plough that digs up the earth deeply and turns it around in a single operation.
The different modes of operation of the two devices also had an impact on the shape and size of the cultivation areas. The fields worked with the ard had about the same field length and width and a square base. Long fields with a rectangular base were much more suitable for the mouldboard plough, as the heavy implements had to be turned less often. Planting and cultivation of oats and rye was promoted, and soon these cereals became the most important type of grain. Farmers who used mouldboard ploughs were required to pay double tax fees.
During the 13th century, glazed ceramics were introduced and the import of stoneware increased. The transfer of technology and knowledge affected the way of life of old and new settlers in a variety of ways and, in addition to innovations in agriculture and handicrafts, also included other areas, such as weapons technology, documents and coins.
With the German settlers new systems of taxation arrived. While the existing Wendish tithe was a fixed tax depending on village size, the German tithe depended on the actual crop yield. Thus higher taxes were collected from the settlers than from the Wends, although settlers were partly exempted from tax payments during the first years after settlement establishment.
The towns established during the Ostsiedlung were Free Towns (civitates liberae) or called "New Towns" by its contemporaries. The rapid increase in the number of towns led to an "urbanization of East Central Europe". The new towns differed from their predecessors in:
Besides the marches, adjacent to the Empire, Germans settled in areas farther east, such as the Carpathians, Transylvania, and along the Gulf of Riga. Settlers were invited by local secular rulers, such as dukes, counts, margraves, princes and (only in a few cases due to the weakening central power) the king. The sovereigns in East Central Europe owned large territories, of which only small portions were arable, which generated very little income. The lords offered considerable privileges to new settlers from the Empire. Starting in the border marks, the princes invited people from the Empire by granting them land ownership and improved legal status, binding duties and the inheritance of the farm. The landowners eventually benefited from these rather generous conditions for the farmers, and generated income from the land that had previously been fallow.
Most sovereigns transferred the specific recruitment of settlers, the distribution of the land and the establishment of the settlements to so-called (allocator of land). These men, who usually came from the lower nobility or the urban bourgeoisie, organized the settlement trains, that included advertising, equipment and transport, land clearing and preparation of the settlements. Locator contracts settled rights and obligations of the locators and the new settlers.
Towns were founded and granted German town law. The agricultural, legal, administrative, and technical methods of the immigrants, as well as their successful Christianization of the native inhabitants, led to a gradual transformation of the settlement areas, as Slavic communities adopted German culture. German cultural and linguistic influence lasted in some of these areas right up to the present day.
In the mid 14th century, the migration process slowed considerably as a result of the Black Death. The population probably decreased by that time and economically marginal settlements were left, in particular at the coast of Pomerania and Western Prussia. Only a century later, local Slavic leaders of Pomerania, Western Prussia and Silesia invited German settlers again.
In the territories of Pomerania and Silesia, German migrants did not settle in the old Slavic/Polish villages and set up new ones on grounds allotted to them by the Slavic/Polish dukes and the monastic clergy. In the marches west of the Oder, the Wends were occasionally driven out and the villages rebuilt by settlers. The new villages would nevertheless keep their former Slavic names. In the case of the village Böbelin in Mecklenburg, the evicted Wendish inhabitants repeatedly invaded their former village, hindering a resettlement.
In the Sorbian March the situation was again different as the area and in particular Upper Lusatia is situated close to Bohemia, ruled by a Slavic dynasty, a loyal and powerful duchy of the Empire. In this environment, German feudal lords often cooperated with the Slavic inhabitants. Wiprecht of Groitzsch, a prominent figure during the early German migration period only acquired local power through the marriage to a Slavic noblewoman and the support of the Bohemian king. German-Slavic relations were generally good, while relations between Slavic-governed Bohemia and Slavic-governed Poland were marred by constant struggle.
Discrimination against the Wends was not a part of the general concept of the Ostsiedlung. Rather, the Wends were subject to a low taxation mode and thus not as profitable as new settlers. Even though the majority of the settlers were Germans (Franks and Bavarians in the South, and Saxons and Flemings in the North), Wends and other tribes also participated in the settlement. New settlers were not chosen just because of their ethnicity, a concept unknown in the Middle Ages, but because of their manpower and agricultural and technical know-how.
Most of the Wends were gradually assimilated. However, in isolated rural areas where Wends constituted a substantial part of the population, they continued their culture. These were the Drevani Polabians of the Wendland east of the Lüneburg Heath, the Jabelheide Drevani of southern Mecklenburg, the Slovincians and Kashubs of Eastern Pomerania, and the Sorbs of Lusatia. Lusatia was inhabited by a large population of Sorbs until the end of the 19th century as linguistic assimilation occurred in a relatively short time.
The oldest adoption of naming units dates back to Proto-Germanic and Proto-Slavic. The original Slavic word italic=yes can be found in almost all Slavic languages. German was mainly used to convey words in Slavic languages that related to handicraft, politics, agriculture and nutrition. This includes Old High German cihla, Middle High German ziegala, ziegel (brick), that resulted from the sound shift of the Latin tegula. An example of borrowing from Slavic into Germanic usage is the word for border. In Middle High German called Grenize, which is a borrowing of the old Czech word granicĕ or the Polish word granica. City names are also affected by language exchange, sound shifting and the Slavic second palatalization. The city of italic=no is called Řezno in Czech and italic=yes in Proto-Slavic. Due to the intensive language contact, idioms were also transmitted. Two examples from Czech and Polish are na vlastní pěst / na własną rękę ('on your own') or ozbrojený po zuby / uzbrojony po zęby ('armed to the teeth'), in Hungarian saját szakállára ('one's own beard') and állig felfegyverzett ('armed to the chin'), with different wording, but with the same meaning.
In German-speaking areas most inherited surnames were formed only after the Ostsiedlung period, and many German surnames are in fact Germanized Wendish placenames.
The former ethnic variety of German (Deutsch-) and Slavic (Wendisch-, Böhmisch-, Polnisch-) toponyms was discontinued by the Eastern European republics after World War II. Villages and towns were renamed in Slavic only. Memory of the history of German settlement was no longer appreciated.
| + For most to least common |
| Slavic, now-/nov- ‘new’ () + -ak means "New settlers" ( |
| Sorbian, nowy ‘new’ () + -ak means "New settlers" () |
| Czech language, krčmář means "Publican" |
| Slavic, nickname with mil- "love, dear" () + - ek |
| Polish language nickname Stanisław |
| Polish, settlement name- kamień "Stone" () + -ski |
| Polish, wieczor "evening" () + -ek |
| Polish, settlement name or kowal "Blacksmith" () + -ski |
| Polish, settlement name + -ski |
| Polish, settlement or the nickname Janek + -ow + -ski |
During World War II, the Generalplan Ost was launched with the aim of extermitating or enslaving Poles and other Slavs, according to the Nazis' Lebensraum concept. In order to press the territorial claims of Germany and to demonstrate supposed German superiority over non-Germanic peoples, the latter's cultural, urban and scientific achievements in that era were undermined, rejected, or presented as German. While further realization of this mega plan, aiming at a total reconstitution of Central and Eastern Europe as a German colony, was prevented by the war's turn, the beginning of the expulsion of 2 million Poles and settlement of Volksdeutsche in the annexed territories yet was implied by 1944.
The Potsdam Conference – the meeting between the leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union – sanctioned the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary. With the Red Army's advance and Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945, the ethnic make-up of Central and Eastern Europe and East Central Europe was radically changed, as nearly all Germans were expelled not only from all Soviet conquered German settlement areas across Central and Eastern Europe, but also from former territories of the Reich east of the Oder-Neisse line, especially the provinces of Silesia, East Prussia, East Brandenburg, and Pomerania. The Soviet Union-established People's Republic of Poland annexed the majority of the lands, while the northern half of East Prussia was taken by the Soviets, becoming the Kaliningrad Oblast, an exclave of the Russian SFSR. The former German settlement areas were resettled by ethnic citizens of the respective succeeding state (Czechs in the former Sudetenland and Poles in Silesia and Pomerania). However, some areas that were settled and Germanized in the course of the Ostsiedlung still form the northeastern part of modern Germany, such as the Bundesländer of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony and east of the limes Saxoniae in Holstein (part of Schleswig-Holstein).
The areas that were settled in the Middle Ages and later came to constitute the Eastern provinces of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary were inhabited by an estimated 30 million Germans at beginning of 20th century. The westward withdrawal of political boundaries of Germany, first in 1919, but substantially in 1945, was followed by the removal of some 15 million people to resettle within borders of present-day Germany. Only the areas that were settled as far back as the 12th (and partially 13th) century remained German in language and culture and stayed part of post-1945 Eastern Germany and Austria.
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