https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostsiedlung
The Wikipedia article is so confusing. It's like it's an pseudo-historical term invented by 19th century Nationalists, with no relevance at all towards historical sources. Can someone tell me about it briefly? Is there any decent English-language book with this topic?
tldr Eastern Europe got rekt by Mongols and Turks so the local kings invited German settlers to colonize depopulated areas.
>>932531
The the German wasted everything in two wars.
>>932531
It began long before Mongols
>>932531
??? literally all of my whats
not only does the Ostsiedlung predate the mongol invasions by a couple of centuries, the areas settled were not those the mongols even reached
the border areas were resettled after the extermination and germanization of the polabian slavs (currend DE/PL border), or at the request of local rulers in settling inhospitable borderlands (bohemia) or inviting specialists, e.g. miners (places in central bohemia)
>>932566
>extermination
do you mean the wendish crusade?
>>932566
Germans started settling in Bohemia in the 13th and 14th century faggot.
>>932531
tldr go learn some history
>>932504
It's a too complicated and too diverse development to be summed up in a few paragraphs. VERY roughly:
1. Military conquest of Eastern regions -> settlers are there to stifle upheavals
2. Slaw lords invite German to cultivate their lands and to stabilize Christianity
3. Climate changes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period) stop the expansion.
Also the whole thing is a mess on a linguistic, cultural and archeological level. It would be a lot smarter to read up on a certain region (e.g. Poland) than trying to understand what happened in the region in a time span of 500 or so years.
>>933470
No. German and Jewish communities have been in cities like Prag since the 10th century.
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudeten_Germans#Middle_Ages_and_early_modern_period
>tfw my autism always makes me sad that post ww1 border realignments weren't decided in elections like in Schleswig
The poor Austrian Hungarian empire never had a chance
Many modern historians look at it in the context of the European expansion of the High Middle Ages. As the population grew, settlers began to colonise sparsely populated areas within Western Europe like forests, swamps or mountain regions (like the Walser migrations in Switzerland). At the North Sea dikes were built to reclaim land for agriculture. Then there was also an outward expansion of the Western European population into less populous areas: mainly the Ostsiedlung of German and Flemish settlers into the areas to the East of the Elbe, the migration of Bavarians into the South and East of present day Austria and pockets of German settlement in South East Europe, notably the Transylvanian Saxons. The Reconquista, the settlements of Iceland, Farores, Shetland, Greenland, etc by the Norse and the crusades to Palestine are also sometimes stated as a part of said expansions.
>>933470
no
>>933638
Some were. Polish-German borders in Silesia and East Prussia were at least. Although desu the results more often than not still make drawing the border pretty problematic.
>>934861
Because said votes were complete sham.
>hey, let's ferry 500K "Silesians" deep from the Reich. You know, everyone who could have ever lived here, including officials and their families and soldiers from garrisons.
>>934921
Source?
>>934929
Practically anything about the subject. Look for the "migrant vote" clause in the treaty.
Or look at least at any maps with vote results for Silesia. Silesia was heavily urbanized - city on city. Yet some cities stand odd as voting for Germany while those around them voted for Poland. Yes, those are the cities where the "migrant voters" were shipped to.
>>933621
> In the late 12th and in the 13th century the Přemyslid rulers promoted the colonization of certain areas of their lands by German settlers from the adjacent lands of Bavaria, Franconia, Upper Saxony and Austria during the Ostsiedlung migration.
Proved his point.
>>934921
What makes it even more laughable is the fact that it was the Poles who insisted on allowing displaced Silesians to vote, in the hope of getting Ruhrpolnische etc on their side. It backfired magnificently as something like 90% of that population voted for Germany.
Although my doubts are more about the fact that human settlement rarely follows criteria that allow for easy delineation of borders, excluding stuff like mountain valleys etc. So in Silesia you had large cities which were largely Germanized, and the countryside which was Polish, with German settlements splattered around.*
*interestingly, like 10 km from where I live in Upper Silesia, there used to be a village which before the war was inhabited solely by German settlers who came here in middle ages and retained their unique identity up until 1920s, speaking a dialect of Middle High German that was barely understandable by germanized populations of the nearby cities.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojk%C3%B3w
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojk%C3%B3w_%28Gliwice%29
>>932504
It just... happened. Central Europe was beginning to see a rise in population at the time, and the Eastern Regions did have some troubles with population. Neighboring horse nomads did attack the area in the past, but that was not much of a problem anymore.
That being said, the area was still very open to settlement. Virgin forests along the coast, winding plains a few miles in, and decent hills for surface mining spread throughout the region.
As Central Europe saw some of the settlers gain success setting up villages there, more followed.
I can say it was like the California Gold Rush here in the United States. Some people saw good fortune, thousands followed seeking that and found just normal lives once they got there. Those immigrants need things like stores, places to sleep, bars to frequent, and whores to buy... the people who supply those follow.
Boom.
Got yourself an Ostsiedlung... or in America's case a Westsiedlung.
>>934978
>Schönwald wurde erstmals 1263 erwähnt
That's an old ass settlement. Does not surprise me though. Like you said: German settlements would dot the map sporadically.
>>934978
>speaking a dialect of Middle High German that was barely understandable by germanized populations of the nearby cities.
>Gliwice
Kek, just imagine some German higher up coming up with the attack on Poland while hearing about these guys.
>dental plan
>Hitler needs spaces
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgqtBm_oUpc
>>932504
>>934967
>14th century is the 12th century
>ignores the very first sentence of the paragraph
gg wp
