I. The First Wave of the Drang Nach Osten
Francis Dvorník
The idea of expansion towards the East runs through whole history Germany like a scarlet thread, and often lends its successive phases similarity design certain consistency. this is one most fascinating epics in European it Germans themselves who started calling Drang nach Osten , ranking results drive among greatest achievements Germany's national past. Truth to tell, there an audacity about fierce ominous dynamism that cannot be denied, for created new from Elbe Oder beyond, deep into Vistula region. No other Western nation can boast such feat, though Russians accomplished something similar, only on vaster scale, when they spread out old Russia Kiev, Novgorod Moscow Volga, Urals Siberian steppes as far Vladivostok. It is, indeed, dramatic tragic turning-point modern these two nations, which developed their grandiose eastward own independent spheres, come head-on crash present bloody merciless struggle.
Cambridge Historical Journal