page_title: Ostsiedlung
section_title: State of the Teutonic Order
hierarchical_section_title: Ostsiedlung / Background / State of the Teutonic Order
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Karte der deutsche Ostkolonisation English: Map of German Eastern settlement
context_page_description: Ostsiedlung is the term for the process of eastward migration and chartering of settlement structures by ethnic Germans of the Holy Roman Empire into less-populated territories, however, already inhabited by Slavs and Balts east of the Saale and Elbe rivers, primarily the southern and western regions of Eastern Europe and the Baltics. The area of colonization stretched from Estonia at the Baltic coast in the north, via the territories that conform to modern Poland and Silesia, further into Bohemia and Slovenia, Hungary and extended south-east into Transylvania. The Ostsiedlung took place along the roughly 1,000 km long eastern territorial border of the Empire and the State of the Teutonic Order. The old term Deutsche Ostkolonisation, which was often used in the past, has been discontinued since the middle of the 20th century due to its linguistic proximity to modern colonialism.
  Central and Eastern European societies underwent various changes in culture, religion, law and administration, agriculture, demography during the period of German eastward expansion.
context_section_description: From 997, the newly established Piast state in Poland had made attempts to conquer the lands of her northeastern neighbours, the Baltic Old Prussians and Yotvingians. In the early 13th century Konrad of Masovia and Daniel of Halych invited the Teutonic Order to join in Christianizing the Baltic Prussians, who were threatening their lands. During the Northern Crusades the Teutonic Knights conquered the Baltic Prussians and granted themselves the region of Prussia (Altpreussenland) establishing the monastic state there in 1224. With the merger of Livonian Brothers of the Sword in 1237 the Livonian territories were incorporated with the Teutonic Order. In 1308, with the takeover of Danzig (Gdańsk), this state expanded into Pomerelia. In 1346, the Duchy of Estonia was sold by king of Denmark to the Teutonic Order.
  Though settlement had to a lower degree occurred in the Frankish marches already, massive settlement did not start until the 12th century (e.g. in East Holstein, West Mecklenburg, Central and Southeastern marches), and in the early 13th century (e.g. in Pomerania, Rügen), following the reassertion of Saxon authority over Wendish areas (the Holstein area by Holstein Count Adolf II, Brandenburg by Albert the Bear, Mecklenburg and Pomerania by Henry the Lion) in the 1150s). The Teutonic monastic state of the Teutonic Order encouraged German settlement of the largely depopulated Prussian lands.
  During the Ostsiedlung, German speakers settled east of the Elbe and Saale rivers, regions largely inhabited by Polabian Slavs. Likewise, in Styria and Carinthia, German-speaking communities took form in areas inhabited by Slovenes.
  The emigration of inhabitants of the Valais valley in Switzerland to areas that had been settled before by the Romans had to some extent the same preconditions as the colonisation of the East. These so-called Wallisser founded villages in the upper zones of Alp valleys, departing from their valley of origin, throughout the north of Italy, Graubünden (Grisons) and Tyrol.
caption: Phases of German eastward expansion adapted from Walter Kuhn
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