Ostsiedlung

Ostsiedlung (, settlement in the east), also called German eastward expansion, was the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans from modern day western and central Germany into less-populated regions and countries of eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The affected area roughly stretched from Slovenia to Estonia, and southwards into Transylvania. In part, Ostsiedlung followed the territorial expansion of the Holy Roman Empire and the Teutonic Order.

According to Jedlicki (1950), in many cases the term "German colonization" does not refer to an actual migration of Germans, but rather to the internal migration of native populations (Poles, Hungarians, etc.) from the countryside to the cities, which then adopted laws modeled on those of the German towns of Magdeburg and Lübeck. 19th and 20th century German historians have often exaggerated the importance of the adoption of German law and settlement in Central and Eastern Europe for political reasons; while the phenomenon did increase the economic well being of destination countries, at least some of them, like medieval Poland, were already quite developed economically and politicallyand the local Slavic population was already far more strongly established in its towns than previously believed; the whole process took part in territories where Slavic solid organisational structures existed.

Before and during the time of German settlement, late medieval Central and Eastern European societies underwent deep cultural changes in demography, religion, law and administration, agriculture, settlement numbers and structures. Thus Ostsiedlung is part of a process termed Ostkolonisation ("east colonization") or Hochmittelalterlicher Landesausbau ("high medieval land consolidation"), although these terms are sometimes used synonymously.

Ethnic conflicts erupted between the newly arrived settlers and local populations, sometimes bloody, and expulsions of native populations are also known. In several areas under the Ostsiedlung the original population was later discriminated and pushed away from administration.

Ostsiedlung was heavily exploited by German nationalists as well as the Nazis to press territorial claims of Germany, and to demonstrate supposed German superiority over non-German peoples, whose cultural, urban and scientific achievements in that era were rejected and presented as German.