Drang nach Osten

German nationalists of the 19th and 20th centuries used the term Drang nach Osten ("Striving towards the East") to express the expansion of Germany, German states and German settlement, that led to the conquest of former Slavic and Baltic areas by Germany from the Middle Ages to 1943. They saw this movement towards the East (questionably) as a proof of German vitality.

However, Slavic people, who also used the German language and learned German concepts at the time, perceived the idea as the major threat to their national security. The idea, as put into practice, diverged from its historical roots.

A definitive halt to the idea of the Drang nach Osten came during World War II, after Nazi Germany had invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Decisions made at the Potsdam conference in 1945, especially as relating to the Oder-Neisse line, rolled back the Drang nach Osten and redesignated German territories within the approximate Germanic borders of the year 1000 AD.

see also: Generalplan Ost

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Drang Nach Osten! (1973)[1] was the original name of Game Designers Workshop's (GDW) outstanding[1] second-generation Second World War Eastern front game in its Europa wargame series. It was published again under the name Fire in the East. The related work Wacht am Rhein covers the Western front.