Ostsiedlung
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Settlement in the East (German: Ostsiedlung), also known as German eastward expansion, refers to the eastward expansion of Germans into regions inhabitated by Slavs, Balts, Romanians, and Hungarians beginning in the 12th century. In German scholarship, it refers especially to the reassertion of Saxon authority over Sorbian or Wendish areas, especially Brandenburg by Albert the Bear.
The settlement of Germans east of the Elbe and Saale rivers (inhabited by Polabian Slavs) and in Styria and Carinthia (inhabited by Slovenians) began the medieval (Deutsche) Ostsiedelung ("settlement of the East"). The emigration of the inhabitants from the Valais canton in Switzerland to the areas that had been settled before by the Romans had to some extent the same preconditions as the colonisation of the East.
The settlement began in the 11th century and reached its peak at the beginning of the 13th century. The various movements were sometimes military and sometimes peaceful, depending on the circumstances. In the middle of the 14th century, the settling progress slowed as a result of the Black Death; in addition, the most profitable areas for settlements had already been occupied. However, local Slavic leaders in late Medieval Pomerania and Silesia continued inviting German settlers to their territories.
In the 19th century, recognition of this complex phenomenon coupled with the rise of nationalism in Germany led to the concepts of Pan-Germanism and Drang nach Osten, which in part gave rise to the concept of Lebensraum. As a result of these nationalist ideas, people considered Slavs by Nazis suffered from discrimination and genocide by Nazi Germany. During and after World War II, Germans were expelled east of the Oder-Neisse line, leaving the current German linguistic border smaller to that of the 10th century. Thus Slav Stalinist ethnic cleansing after the second World War partially reverted the settlement of Slavic or baltic territory by Germanic people conducted during Ostsiedlung. Large areas setteld at that time by Germans are however still part of Germany.
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Background
The beginnings of the East Colonisation are connected with the expansion of Charlemagne's Carolingian Empire and his efforts to safeguard its borders with marches. The eastern borders were exposed to a constant pressure of neighbouring peoples, such as Danes (or Normans), various Slavic people (Obotrites, Wends, Sorbs, Bohemians, Moravians), and Hungarians, in the 9th and the 10th centuries. Under the rule of King Louis the German of East Francia and of Arnulf of Carinthia, the first waves of settlement led by Franks and Bavarii reached the area of present-day Slovakia and what was then Pannonia (present-day Burgenland, Hungary, and Slovenia). The pioneers were accompanied by missionaries who brought with them Roman Catholicism and German culture, albeit with varying influence.
In order to safeguard their unstable eastern borders, the Ottonians and Salians commenced short military campaigns against their neighbors and established defensive marches under allied or trusted princes. These princes settled their new territories with settlers (usually Germans or Dutch) from the Holy Roman Empire, and granted them estates and privileges (such as the inheritable position of village elder).
Settlement was usually organised by so-called lessors. The advanced agricultural, legal, administrative, and technical methods of the immigrants, as well as their successful proselytising of the native inhabitants, led to a gradual transformation of the marches. At the same time, linguistically and culturally Slavic areas became affiliated with the Empire as German lands. The original princes of such territories became princes of the Empire. Beside the marches which were adjacent to the Empire, German settlement occurred in areas farther away, such as the Carpathians, Transylvania, and along the Gulf of Riga. German cultural and linguistic influence lasted in some of these areas right up to the present day.
The East Colonisation was predominantly a peaceful process; the rulers of Hungary, Bohemia, Silesia, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, and Poland encouraged German settlement to promote the development of the less populated portions of the land. The Transylvanian Saxons and Baltic Germans were corporately combined and privileged. In Silesia the Germans, without receiving special privileges as a group, became integral parts of both state and society.
The people in the regions at the south of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation were still pagan (at least at the beginning), so that German settlers frequently accompanied monks as missionaries.
Historical development of a few marches and regions
In northern Germany the Ostsiedlung led to conflicts between the pagan Saxons and Charlemagne as he secured the borders of his empire. The Obotrites, who entered into various coalitions and after 800 fought against the Empire, stood in Charlemagne's way at that time; the Saxons could trust the support of the *Borussen and the Danes. In 804, it was decided that the zones to the west of the Elbe river became parts of the Carolingian Empire. For the time being, the land to the east of the Elbe river stayed outside the boundaries of the later Holy Roman Empire (see Limes Saxoniae).
Harald Bluetooth, who at that time was a seignory of Otto I, took shelter from his son by the Baltic Sea near to the Oder river in the zone, which, as from 1050, has been called Pomerania. The dioceses of Brandenburg and Havelburg were destroyed in the rebellion of Slavic peoples in 983.
Nordalbingen
The Nordalbingen March, occupying the territory between Hedeby and the Danish fortress of Dannevirke in the north and the Eider River in the south, was part of the Empire during the reign of Charlemagne. The border was later fixed at the Eider River.
March of the Billungs and the Brandenburg March
The March of the Billungs and the North March were still not parts of the Empire under the Salians and the Ottonians.
At the time of Albrecht von Ballenstedt (Albrecht the Bear), the North March stretched from the territory of the Askanier(Ascanians) (see also: Anhalt) to the Brandenburg Markgrafschaft and therefore became part of the Empire. In 1147, Heinrich the Lion conquered the **March of the Billungs, the later Mecklenburg as a seignory and in 1164 Pomerania, that lay further to the east of the Baltic Sea. In 1181, Mecklenburg and Pomerania officially became parts of the Roman-German Empire.
A little time later the last expansion to the East was completed with Silesia. Poland, which was adjacent to Silesia, proved itself strond enough to prevent a further eastward expansion of the Empire. ''
Saxony
In the later duchy of Saxony, several Markgrafschaften (Lausitz, Meißen, Thuringian Markgrafschaft, Zeitz) were established at first.
Silesia
As of 1138 after the death of Boleslaw Schiefmund (Engl: Boleslaw Wry-Mouth ), Silesia became part of the Polish particularism. The state of Poland declined into many autonomous partial duchies. On that account, the province of Silesia. That also happened with the Silesian province, that in 1202 was divided into two independent duchies. Since the beginning of the 13th century, the reinforced Polish-Silesian Piast dynasty kept German settlers on the land, who in decades founded more than 100 new towns and over 1200 villages under German law, particularly under the law of the town Magdeburg. Many churches and hospitals came into being. For the most part, the original Slavic settlements also suited the German settlements legally, socially and linguistically. Most immigrants came from the Middle-Frankish language area (from the environment of Mainz), from Hessen and from Thuringia. Accordingly, the dialect of the Low Silesian people changed into another form, in which the Middle-Frankish, Hessian, Thuringian and Slavic features are united.
The population grew at least fivefold. The German settlement was initated substantially by Duke Henry the I of Silesia and his wife Hedwig of Andechs (1201-1238). This settlement also attempted to merge the duchy of Opole (Oppeln) as well as the regions Greater and Lesser Poland. However, he died in 1238 and because of the Mongolian invasions from 1241 in which his successor Henry the Pious also lost, his plan failed.
From 1249, the duchy Silesia and from 1281 the duchy Oppeln declined temporarily into more than a dozen smaller Piastian duchies that were rivalled with each other. The Bohemian and later also Poland, that has been united since 1306, attempted to go into this vacuum of power. From 1289 to 1292, the earldom Glatz was already brought under control of the Bohemian.
Eventually, the Piast dynasty took shelter under the duchies Silesia and Oppeln individually or in groups as Vassals of the fiefdom of the Bohemian (Czech) kings. In 1353, the Bohemian won the duchy Schweidnitz-Jauer through the marriage of Charles the IV with the Schweidnitz-Jauerian heiress Anna. With the Treaty of Visegrád (1333), in comparison to Trencín (1335) as well as in the Treaty of Namslau (1348), the Polish kings had to recognize the Bohemian head power and the affiliation with the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The most important detail in those treaties is the agreement of Trencin, that was confirmed in 1339.
On that account, king Casimir III of Poland stopped claiming Silesia. Im 1348, the Bohemian emperor and Charles the IV, Holy Roman Emperor integrated into the Empire Bohemia and therefore into the Holy Roman Empire. In the period following, Low Saxony became part of the German speaking area, while Upper Silesia, comparably to the settlement of the Sorbs, remained a German – Polish mixed area.
Lesser Poland
Since the beginning of the 14/15th centuries, the Polish-Silesian Piast dynasty – (Władysław Opolczyk), reinforced German settlers on the land, who in decades founded more than 150 towns and villages under German law, particularly under the law of the town Magdeburg (Magdeburg law). Ethnic Germans, along with Ashkenazi Jews, also formed a large part of the town population of Kraków.
Literature
- Prof. Kazimierz Tymieniecki - "Niemcy w Polsce", Poznań 1934
- Prof. Barbara Czopek-Kopciuch - "Adaptacje niemieckich nazw miejscowych w języku polskim", Kraków 1995, ISBN 83-85579-33-8
- Prof. Aleksandra Cieślikowa (Cieślik) - "Nazwy osobowe pochodzenia niemieckiego", Kraków 1997, ISBN 83-85579-63-X
Bohemia and Moravia
The decline of the Great Moravia
After the decline of the Great Moravia in 900, whose founder Ratislaw (also: Ratislav) wanted to connect the land to the east church with the help of the missionaries Kyrill and Methodius, who were summmoned from Byzantine, Bohemian princes appeared in the Parliament, including the Přemyslidian Spitignew who came to Regensburg. They built a new following of the East Carolingian Empire that was however still highly controversial between the members of the Bohemian (Czech) aristocracy: in 929, the Premyslidian Bleslaw murdered his brother, the duke Wenzel who was still in charge, because of his following and his Christianity that was given by German missionaries. The German king Henry I, the Fowler, led his army to Prague the same year to repress the rebellion against the Empire. In 950, Duke Boleslaw realized the cruelty of the German fiefdom and organized a succession in the army, as in the battle on Lechfeld in 955. In 973, the Prague diocese was founded under the aegis of Wolfgang, bishop of Regensburg. The first bishop of this diocese became the Saxonian benedictine monk Thietmar. After that Bohemia was subordinated to the archbishopric Mainz. In 983, Adalbert, a Slav who founded the benedictine monastery St. Margaret in Brewnow, became successor of Thietmar. In 997, Adalbert was killed by pagan Prussian people. Henry II, who was emperor from 1014 until 1024, dislodged the Polish duke (and later king) Boleslaw Chrobry who had conquered large parts of Bohemia as well as Moravia and Silesia. Bohemia became dependent on Germany; the Bohemian dukes were obliged to visit the hostage drama and to take part in the national war. Günter, called "the Blessed", monk of the benedictine monastery Altaich and who came from princely background, became a recluse in the Bohemian forest; new connecting paths were built between Bohemia and Bavaria through the virgin forest. The foundation of the benedictine monastery Raigern goes back to Guenter. Later, the Säumer paths - the Golden Path as the most important trade paths between Bohemia and Moravia, had special meaning. Along those Säumer paths, a great number of new places on sides of the Bohemian forest. The city Prachatice (German: Prachatitz) owes its foundation and flowering time from the 14th century to the Golden Paths.In 1030, Bretislaw united Bohemia and Moravia after those regions had come under control of Poland. Both lands were fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1038, duke Bretislaw conquered further parts of Poland and attempted to secede from the Empire that brought about preconditions with the German emperor Henry II.
In 1063, duke Wratislaw founded the diocese Olmütz; in 1085 he coronated Henry IV in Mainz to be king of Bohemia.
In 1142, the monatery Strahov opposite the Prague Burg (Hradschin) was founded by the monks of the Prämonstratens monastery Steinfeld in Cologne. The "white monks" advanced to the position of the most important German misssion foundations in Bohemia and Moravia. In 1117, duchess Richsa summmoned benedictine monks from Zweifalten (Württemberg) to Kladrau.
References
- Charles Higounet (1911-1988) "les allemands en Europe centrale et oriental au moyen age"
- * German translation: "Die deutsche Ostsiedlung im Mittelalter",
- * Japanese translation: "ドイツ植民と東欧世界の形成", [彩流社], by Naoki Miyajima
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