Talk:Drang nach Osten
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[edit] those Slavic peoples
"However, to those Slavic peoples who also used the German language and learned German concepts at the time, perceived the idea as a major threat to their national security. The idea, as put into practice, diverged from its historical roots."
Huh!
This article should be really revised, probably from someone who is wether German nor Slavic (I´m both). But at least some remarks have to be made:
1. "Drang nach Osten" never was a plan or a programme. It is just what modern historians call in retrospect what happened between the 9th an 16th century in Central Europe.
2. It was far more a fight between Christianity and pagan societies than ethnic conflict, with Germany (to be more exact: The Holy Roman Empire) being on the frontier of Christianity. As soon as pagan principals conversed to Christendom they were integrated and became principals of the HRE like the pommeranian dukes. That the HRE was by far predominantly German and the tribal societies were gradually Germanized is a fact but it was not necessarily commanded. German clergy, merchants and peasants moved in, founding numerous cities and thousands of villages and mixed with the slavic inhabitants.
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- Huh? You mean migratory pressure of expanding population of HRE and (especially) colonization drive by knights -- "third sons" and other lumpen-"nobility" of W.Europe into both pagan and Christian (like Poland) lands alike is a religious conflict?
- Collapse of the Wendic state was indeed an "invitation" to all these elements to move in under Christian banner. But the pressure was then shifted onto Poland, a state "as catholic as it gets"—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.123.123.129 (talk • contribs) 21:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
3. The "Ostsiedlung" (Eastern migration) ended in the 16th century with the ethnic pattern reaching the state it had up to 1945. To confuse Hitler with something which happened 500 years before is not serious.
Furthermore, as far as I know, Hitler was talking about stopping the thousands years old drive of the Germanic people to the south (sic!, towards the Roman Empire) and to turn it to the east. He had plans of colonizing e. g. even the Crimean Peninsula with German people, but he had plans to resettle all the Jewish people in Madagascar too and to ally with the British Empire to fight the United States of America. So with his plans and sayings you can probably proof everything and the opposite too.
Interestingly, one of the few slavic words which made it into Standard German is the word for border or frontier: "Grenze" from slavic "granica".—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.144.59.18 (talk • contribs) 09:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
Obsrvation by [Hartmut Pilch http://a2e.de/phm] The purpose of this article seems to be in the justification of ethnical cleansing committed against 15 million Germans after the second world war. I'll try a proposal for rewriting the sentence that justifies the massive human rights violation by the Potsdam Conference to relativise it and make it less reprehensible.
[edit] Article revision
This article needs to be revised really urgently. It distinguishes poorly between actual historical events spanning almost a whole millennium, and the late 19th century propagandistic slogan-concept "Drang nach Osten", which by the way was not coined by German nationalists, but Polish and Russian intellectuals. The idea itself was indeed used affirmatively by German politicians and scholars later on, but neither in the German nationalist nor in its original panslavistic anti-German guise is it any adequate description of complex and disparate historical developments. To conflate the medieval eastward migrations of German settlers (cf. link to "Deutsche Ostsiedlung") and details about the Warsaw Uprising is completely absurd and betrays this article's origin in 1950s-style anti-German propaganda. There should actually be two articles - one about the actual history of German eastward expansion, and another on the ideology of "Drang nach Osten" as employed by 19th/20th century nationlists in Germany, Poland, and Russia. --Thorsten1 16:42, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
As a first step to revise and extend this article, I moved the description of the wargame Drang nach Osten to a new article of its own, as I believe the explanation of the concept and the description of the game should not be within the same article. Whether the game is significant enough in itself to have its own article is open to debate, of course. --Thorsten1 12:00, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Ostsiedlung
Ok, I agree with some of your criticisms and I started a Ostsiedlung page in English. Can you translate some of the German material? Then we can work out how Ostsiedlung fits in with Drang nach Osten, history of Germans being invited (yes, invited sometimes) into Eastern regions, history of the Teutonic knights, Austrian and Prussian expansionism etc., and views of Germans and non-German peoples, all the while try to be NPOV. --Jpbrenna 06:51, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Hello Joseph, thanks for taking the initiative on this and writing a level-headed stub. As you can see above, I have been itching to set this mess straight for a few months now, but I never seem to find the time... I had planned to write a separate artice on the history of "Drang nach Osten" as a concept first, but to keep things going I'll be glad to contribute something to the history of "Ostsiedlung" itself. However, I'm travelling at the moment and on a slow and expensive dial-up connection, so I can't start right away. I just wanted to add that the corresponding German article "Deutsche Ostsiedlung" has to be read and translated with some caution, as it is not free of national bias, either, even when this is not as obvious as in Drang nach Osten. And I'm not sure as to the new article's title - is Ostsiedlung really an established historical term in the Anglophone world? In a quick Google search, there are only 134 results for "Ostsiedlung" on English-language pages (including German book titles in bibliographies), but 7,260 results for "German eastward expansion". Personally, I think that "(Medieval) German eastward migration" might be suited best in terms of historical correctness, even though it has just 4 hits in Google. --Thorsten1 13:56, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It is established in English. The text we are using in one of my current history classes employs the term, although it is spelled incorrectly (one of their many errors; my professor and I are working on a list to send to the publisher). I have also seen it employed in a few other sources, although I agree that "German eastward expansion" is more commonly used; however, Ostsiedlung satisfies two important needs of academics: a) it enables them to sum up a concept in a convenient, one-word term and b) it provides a pretentious German word for English-speaking academics to throw around, along with zeitgeist, zeitzuleben, realpolitik et al. This is a favorite activity of professors in America, thus, the use of Ostsiedlung can only increase in English.
The issue is not whether Ostsiedlung is established in English, but whether it has been used in refrence to later medieval and modern eastward migrations of German-speaking peoples. I don't have any references to that. For now, I'm going to leave that information in the present article, but we might want to separate it into different articles for the diffeent phases. I'm also making a note that it can also be referred to as Ostkolonisation or "German eastward expansion. --Jpbrenna 17:20, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Ostsiedlung is not an established English word and should be replaced in this article. Philip Baird Shearer 17:23, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Title
The title "Drang nach Osten" should be changed to an English one. Philip Baird Shearer 17:23, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
- It is an accepted term in English language, similiar to Kulturkampf for example.No need to change it.--Molobo 23:47, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
- I agree with Molobo. Way back in in 1952, it appeared at least twice in Christopher Buckley's Greece and Crete 1941. I can get the book from the library again if you would like page numbers. Buckley was a professional historian - an Oxford don, I believe - and his prose is sprinkled with Latin and Old French phrases that aren't very productive in lower registers of English. Still, being rare doesn't make a word unestablished. Ostsiedlung is an established academic term and as I noted above, its use only seems to increase. --Joe 17:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Title should be changed
"Drang nach Osten" is a term that has been propagandized and used by the Nazis and like-minded historians. The Nazis tried to rewrite history and describe it as a permanent fight between Germans and their slawic neighbors in the East. It was their aim to sow hatred to get a basis for the planned conquest and enslaving of the Slawic nations. History was quite different. In fact in many cases it were slawic rulers who invited German settlers to settle down in their territories. And for several centuries there was a peaceful coexistence of different ethnic groups. E. g., the citizens of Danzig (Gdańsk), although German, were loyal to the Polish King and even supported his struggle against the Teutonic Knights. On the other hand the Polish king granted them their local self-administration, their Lutheran confession (after the Reformation) and the German culture. The more neutral term "Deutsche Ostsiedlung", literally "German Eastern settlement" would be more appropriate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.123.123.129 (talk • contribs) 21:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
...I would like to add that I am utterly amazed at the racism on Wikipedia. Gdansk was a Polish port with many different peoples living within it. It is so sad, and so pathetic, to see this Nazi filth pervading Wikipedia. This "encyclopedia" is a waste of time. I urge all of you to abandon it and give up. It will always be nothing more than a cheap imitation bolstering racist sentiments. I am so sick of it, particularly of the German attempts at pushing some perverted and invented idea of their "ethnicity" (interestingly, German racism is still a HUGE problem, despite the myths and image of Germany having become "sensitive" to discrimination. Laughable!). Stop pretending to be historians. --71.233.248.90 20:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] "that led to the World War I"
While it may be open to discussion whether something like a "Drang nach Osten" existed as a major political or demographic influence at the time before World War I, it was definately not the cause for it. It is not possible to use a single sentence to connect over a thousand years of history to such a complex historical incident as the start of WWI. If nobody objects, I will remove this sentence. Mannimstein 12:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] warsaw
i don´t think that the deportation of poles after the second uprise in warsaw has something to do with a drang nach osten (settelement in the east). there was no chance for a settlement at that time because the red army was standing on the other side of the river vistula already. maybe some crazy nazis were dreaming that but at that point of time this was completly unrealistic. just a short time later the red army started there vistula-oder offensive which brought them near to berlin. these deportations to my mind were mainly done to avoid a troop binding uprise on a main strategic point 5 km from the main frontlinie in warsaw-praga. the german side has had massive problems to just even hold the frontlinie. sorry they were not even thinking of preparing the ground for a colonization at that point in time. In the years before thats true but as a reason for these measurements, no i don´t think so, unrealistic.--131.173.252.9 08:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
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- What are you talking about?
- Drang nach Osten (German for "Drive towards the East") is a term used in Germany's history that means the expansion of Germany, German culture, German language, German speaking states and German settlement, that led to the conquest of former Slavic and Baltic areas by Germany starting during the Middle Ages until the end of World War II in 1945 when the Nazi German Wehrmacht were defeated by the Red Army of the Soviet Union.
- An example of that is this
- The Teutonic Knights became a Polish feud in 1466. After the partition of Poland by Prussia, Austria and Russia in 1772, 1793 and 1795 Prussia gained much of Western Poland. Russia and Sweden eventually conquered the lands taken by the Knights of the Sward in Estonia and Livonia. Which you removed
- And this
- Nazi officials used it as grounds for the expulsion of 800,000 Poles from Warsaw to concentration camps after the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, which caused 200,000 deaths. The city of Warsaw with millions of inhabitants was ordered to be completely demolished on Hitler's personal orders. Himmler stated that the Poles had been an obstacle to German Eastern expansion for the last 700 years, and that the aim was to remove that obstacle permanently.
- This Nazi officials used it as grounds for the expulsion of 800,000 Poles from Warsaw to concentration camps after the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, which caused 200,000 deaths. The city of Warsaw with millions of inhabitants was ordered to be completely demolished on Hitler's personal orders. Himmler stated that the Poles had been an obstacle to German Eastern expansion for the last 700 years, and that the aim was to remove that obstacle permanently. Is a perfect example of Drang nach Osten
hey we are talking about the year 1944 close to the german defeat. be sure there was no settlement planing done at taht oint of time before yes at stage no. you need citations
why you don´t right somthing about the brual and rassist polnish Drang nach Westen.?--131.173.252.9 08:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Drang nach Osten vs. Ostsiedelung
The whole article gives an example of the propagandistic way both terms are still used!
Hardly to prove "Drang nach Osten" (as a term of ultra nationalism) in documents prior to World War I., any continuity is verifiable. To establish a connection with "Ostsiedelung" could have no other reason than to tell the story of an Polish-German enmity and to justify the violation of Human Rigths.
[edit] Drang
Doesn't Drang mean more something like Desire or Need? I know it (drang) does in Dutch language. Mallerd 18:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Useful
Wschodnia ekspansja w Europie Środkowej. Zbiór studiów nad tzw. niemieckim. »Drang nach Osten«, red. G. Labuda, Poznań 1963
Res publica - Strona 38 autor: Marcin Król Ważne jest to, że pojecie Drang nach Osten zyskuje w Polsce znak ujemny — Niemcy, którzy prą na wschód, nie niosą ze sobą wyższej cywilizacji --Molobo (talk) 21:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
