Goths had begun to speak Crimean Tatar and Crimean Greek from long before the arrival of Busbecq, thus they may well have integrated into the wider population, as later visitors to Mangup were unable to discover "any trace" of Gothic peoples. Legacy Almost no signs of the Crimean Goths exist today. It was claimed by the Third Reich and by Adolf Hitler that the Crimean Goths had survived long enough to interbreed with later German settlers in Crimea, and that the German communities in Crimea constituted native peoples of that area. Hitler had intended to re-settle German people to Crimea, and rename numerous towns with their previous Crimean Gothic names. During the Nazi occupation of Crimea following its capture in the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, Sevastopol was changed to Theoderichshafen. Hitler's ultimate goal for his planned "Gau Gothenland" ("Gothland" or "Gothia") was to replace the local population with "pure Germans" and turn the Crimea into what he described as "the German Gibraltar"—a national foothold not contiguous to the rest of Germany, similar to how Gibraltar was not contiguous to the rest of the United Kingdom—to be connected to Germany proper by an autobahn. The plan was postponed for the duration of the war, and never went into effect due to the Soviet recapture of Crimea and Nazi Germany's eventual defeat. See also Bastarnae Chernyakhov culture Crimea Germans Crimean Gothic Gothiscandza Gutasaga Haplogroup I-M438 Herules History of Germans in Russia, Ukraine and the Soviet Union List of Germanic tribes Oium Ostrogoths Scandza Visigoths Wielbark culture Notes References Sources External links Brief history of Theodoro Principality (Mangup) ENG Medieval Crimea Early Germanic peoples Goths Ethnic groups in Ukraine