Battle on the Raxa The Battle on the Raxa river ( ) was fought on 16 October 955 over control of the Billung march ( in present - day Mecklenburg - Vorpommern , northeast Germany ) between the forces of Otto I of Germany allied with the Rani tribe on one side , and the Obotrite federation under Nako and his brother Stoigniew ( Stoinef , Stoinneg , Ztoignav ) with their allied and tributary Slav neighbours on the other . The Raxa river is identified with either the Recknitz or the Elde river . The German victory over the Slavs followed up on the August victory at the Lechfeld over the Magyars and marked the high point of Otto ' s reign . A thirty - year peace followed , only ending with the Slavic revolt in 983 . Background . While King Otto was distracted by his campaigns against the Magyars , his vassals Wichmann the Younger and his brother Egbert the One - Eyed instigated a Slav revolt in the Billung March . The Obotrites invaded Saxony and sacked the Cocarescemians ' settlement , killing the men of arms - bearing age and carrying off the women and children into slavery . According to Widukind of Corvey , in the aftermath of Lechfeld , Otto pressed hard into Slav territory , where Wichmann and Egbert had sought refuge . Otto razed the Slav population centres and soon had encircled them ; he offered to spare his enemies if they would surrender . A Slav embassy came to an assembly Otto held in Saxony and offered to pay annual tribute in return for being allowed self - government ; " otherwise , " they said , they would " fight for their liberty . " Reuter argues that this is indicative of a change in German governing practice : a change from overlordship , which the Slavs were willing to accept , to lordship , which the Slavs protested . Dendrodates reveal that in the context of the Saxon - Obodrite conflict , the Slavs in present - day northeast Germany started to built lots of forts - only few forts were built before . A second phase of extensive fort construction occurred in the 980s , in the context of the great uprising of 983 . Contemporary accounts . The course of the battle is described in Widukind of Corvey ' s chronicle " Rerum gestarum Saxonicarum " lib . III c . LIII - LV and , in less detail , in Thietmar of Merseburg ' s " Chronicon " lib . II . 12 . Short mentions of the battle are recorded in the respective paragraphs about the year 955 in the continuation of the annals of Prüm Abbey and the annals of S . Gallen Abbey . Location . With respect to the site of the battle , the sources remain extremely vague . According to Widukind of Corvey , the battlefield was the swampy valley of a river named " Raxa " , which in literature is identified either as the Recknitz or Elde river . Battle . According to Timothy Reuter , Otto I ' s army of the day was drawn from every " regnum " ( duchy ) of the German kingdom , even Bohemia . According to Widukind of Corvey , who gave the only surviving detailed record of the battle itself , Otto I ' s campaign came to a halt at the bank of the " Raxa " river , where the Obodrites and their allies , led by Stoigniew ( Stoinef ) , had taken a defensive position on the opposite embankment . Otto ' s margrave Gero , together with the allied tribe of the " Ruani " - most probably the earliest mention of the Rani - secretly moved to a distinct part of the river to build three bridges , while a feint assault by the remaining forces distracted Stoigniew ' s army . Stoigniew realized too late that Otto ' s forces were already crossing the river on another side , and the ensuing encounter was won by the latter . The fate of Stoigniew is described by both Widukind of Corvey and Thietmar of Merseburg . While both agree that he was decapitated , their accounts on how that happened differ : Widukind says that during the battle , Stoigniew was chased into a wood , run down and killed by a soldier named Hosed , who was handsomely rewarded after presenting Otto with Stoigniew ' s severed head . Thietmar of Merseburg says that the captured Stoigniew , whom he calls Stoinneg , was decapitated by Otto . After the battle , according to Widukind , Stoinegin ' s head was raised on a pole and seven hundred of captured Slavs were executed before sundown . The annals of S . Gallen also report the violent death of Stoigniew , whom they name Ztoignav , but do not detail how he had died . They do however date the battle to the day of their patron , Saint Gall - i . e . 16 October .