1 Germanization of the West Slavs
Large-scale colonization was accompanied by a process of national integration and assimilation. In the Middle Ages, the process of national integration began in Eastern Europe, which emerged with the migration of Germans eastward in the Middle Ages. In Eastern Europe, colonial movements were often followed by integration and assimilation between different peoples. "For most Slavs, an important consequence of the German military conquest was their Germanization."
With the influx and settlement of German settlements, the newly established settlements replicated the economic and social structure of the original settlements. In Pomerania, new Slavic villages were established, and soon the Slavic villages were transformed into German villages.
The Slavs who lived in the same villages as the Germans soon adopted the German agricultural model, learning to use the iron plough and the three-plot system, and adopting German laws and taxes, and if the Slavs lived in their own villages, the composition of the villages would be modeled on the German villages.
Slavic villages, like German villages, have a chief who exercises the lowest judicial power. By the middle of the 14th century, "there is no trace of any difference in possession between Slavic and German villages." "In the towns, many Slavs became town citizens, who, like the Germans, were under the rule of the mayor.
German culture dominated Slavic towns, although many were centered on Slavic villages and had Slavic names. Whatever the origin of the town's name, its inhabitants saw themselves as German citizens.
The Slavs in the towns quickly mixed with the Germans and were soon completely assimilated. The spread of German law to the Slavic villages was one of the driving forces behind the Germanization of the region. When immigrants poured into the new settlements, they often settled under German law.
Later, as the contacts deepened, the German form of justice gradually extended to the Slavs, and the Slavs also began to use German law. In 1220, the Count of Schwerin granted German law to the Slavs living in the village of Brussewitz, and emphasized that judicial fines for crimes henceforth must be based on the amount specified in German law.
In the Slavic villages, like the German peasants, the Slavs had to attend the full legislative assembly. If the Slavic peasants did not attend, they were subject to fines in the same way as the German peasants. In 1296, the Slavic peasants of East Pomerania actually served as jurors in the village court.
The importance of German law is that it implies personal freedom, that is, it "relieves the peasants from dependence on land, substitutes fixed land rent for service obligations, and rarely restricts the right to inherit and dispose of property." Thanks to the adoption of German law, the newly established Slavic peasants in the villages quickly benefited from this advantageous legal position.
In Pomerania and Rügen, for example, it was customary to remeasure village land in order to raise taxes after arable land increased. However, from the middle of the 13th century, the Slavic villages founded by the Rügen monastery received exemption from resurveying the land and were able to permanently possess beards, even if in some cases they would still use the Slavs' economic unit "Uncus".
In addition, German law fixed taxes on Slavic peasants at one time, and their right to sell and bequeath property was legally guaranteed. Thus, the Slavs were legally Germanized.
Intermarriage between Slavic peoples and German immigrants was common.
When they lived in the same village, the Slavic peasants naturally adapted to the customs of the Germans. As exchanges gradually increased, it became common for Slavs to intermarry Germans. Intermarriages between the Slavic nobility and the German nobility also increased rapidly, "and they quickly merged into the feudal upper class, so that it was often impossible to distinguish between German and Slavic family origins."
Through intermarriage between peoples, the integration of the German and Slavic peoples accelerated. Soon "intermarriage between the Slavic nobility and the German nobility increased so rapidly that all real signs of distinguishing in Pomerania as Slavs or Germans disappeared".
2 Germanization of the Prussians
With the eventual submission of Prussia, the Teutonic Knights seized the lands of the natives. When the Order took control of Prussia, the policy of eradication or expropriation of the Prussian nation became the next goal of the Teutonic Order. Thus, "the German Order of Religion naturally acted as an instrument of Prussian Germanization."
The Order made a political, rather than ethnic, distinction between the Prussian natives. The horse regiment distinguished between those who remained loyal during the 1261-1275 uprising and those who rebelled. The former became the upper class - Prussian freemen: while the latter became serfs.
The noble families that remained loyal continued to hold vast lands and enjoyed the same legal and economic status as the German nobility, and rapidly Germanized. At the end of the 13th century, some of the local Prussian nobility was Germanized, and they adopted Western European methods of warfare.
By the 14th century, they were no different from the German nobility. In general, freemen were treated like Germans, whose taxes and servitude differed from those of peasants, but were identical to those of Germans. Soon after, they also achieved Germanization economically.
The Prussian peasants were also able to rise to the status of freemen, and they could accelerate their Germanization by becoming freemen, since freemen were often considered Germans. "By the 15th and 16th centuries, there may have been a Germanized Lu among the German peasants." Prussia's lowest-ranking settlers, the Prussian serfs, were also gradually Germanized.
Throughout the 14th century, Prussian serfs were gradually assimilated by the German peasants in economic and legal status. Until then, the Prussian serfs had limited rights and obligations. For example, "In the 13 60s, a certain amount of money was required to freely leave the original lord and settle in the domain of other lords".
Moreover, on the surface, serfs enjoyed hereditary land rights, but in fact if they did not have sons to inherit land, the Teutonic Knights would have acquired their land. All this shows that the rights of the Prussian serfs were restricted. However, from the end of the 13th century onwards they became economically Germanized.
They had to pay the same poll tax as German peasants and otherwise enjoy the same status as German peasants. Due to the Germanization of the Prussian serfs, signs of serfdom disappeared in Prussia.
The Prussian nation was also de jure Germanized. In the parish of Warmia, at least 50 villages were used as settlements by the Prussian mayor, usually under the jurisdiction of the Kurm Law or German law.
The Prussian freemen had to abide by the administration of justice in the villages. When a German village was built, if the Prussian peasants were still willing to stay here, they were also required to obey the laws of the village. Soon after, entire Prussian villages were under the Kulm Law.
The process of Germanization was inevitably a change in language. Prussian, for example, is a Baltic language similar to Lithuanian and Latvian, which was spoken by Prussians natively, but disappeared in the 17th century due to the intervention of German immigrants and rulers.
3. Germanization of the peoples of the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea
The Baltic Crusaders played an important role in the brutal Germanization of the peoples on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, and the Lübeck and Bremen merchants and clergy who accompanied the Crusaders worked tirelessly across the sea to colonize Livonia, and as a result of the colonization campaign and the consequent influx of German immigrants, two blocs gradually formed here: "one is the foreign upper class of the Baltic Germans and the other is the conquered indigenous peasantry, and these two groups coexist in a relationship that is essentially colonial and colonized".
It was precisely because the Baltic peoples were in a colonized position that they were rapidly Germanized. No more than six or seven percent of the population of the Baltic provinces were Germans, but from northern Murmor onwards, the local towns were founded by Germans.
They concentrate in important places and also control all the wealth of the entire country. The fully Germanized area is along the coast of the Gulf of Riga and the mouth of the Dvina River, and the coast and riverside are surrounded by towns and villages with German characteristics.
The ruling class in the towns consisted of merchants and influential townspeople, almost all of whom were Germans. Bakluchin said in his memoirs of the House of the Dead: "Riga is a very large and bright city, but its only mistake is that there are too many Germans there".
Intermarriage between German immigrants and natives was common. Of the knights who settled in Estonia, only a few knights brought their families, and the remaining knights had to intermarry local women.
German immigrants to the Baltic Sea "were more inclined to marry local women because they could not afford to transport a woman across the sea." "With the arrival of German immigrants and the frequent intermarriage between peoples, the traditional customs gradually disappeared, and Germanic customs became popular.
A degree of bilingualism occurs on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. Some terms from Low German entered the language of the locals, gradually replacing some of the original words of the Baltic peoples.
4. The existence of ethnic discrimination
What cannot be ignored in the process of ethnic assimilation is the existence of ethnic discrimination. The less civilized peoples of Eastern Europe were often discriminated against by more civilized Westerners in the process of Germanization. For example, a friend of the Bishop of Oldenburg, Wago, advised him in abusive language not to marry his sister to Bilger, Duke of Oberit, because a beautiful woman should not be associated with a rude, uneducated person.
Dietrich, Count of Saxony, opposed the marriage of the Slavic prince Mistivoi to the daughter of Duke Bernard I of Saxony, stating that relatives of the duke should not marry a dog. Dietrich also gathered all the Slavs and said in Saxony: "The Slavs are dogs".
It can be seen that in their eyes, the Slavs are a lower people. This discrimination is also reflected in the payment of taxes. The Slavs carried much more labor and taxes than the German immigrants. In Pomerania, the Slavs paid full tithes to the church, but newly settled German immigrants paid only a fraction.