Is it really true that East Germans have Slavic ancestry?

[Dr. Robotnik the Subbotnik]

i think they do, you said they have lots of slavic surnames that also means down the line they had a slavic forefather, and thats only paternal because you inherit your surname from your father, not counting the maternal

Many German surnames as well as place names are Slavic in origin, yes. From long ago. So it would be more distant Slavic ancestry, Slavs who got Germanized over time by Germanic conquerors. It is true that at one point in history there were only Slavs in what is now East Germany. They never left, rather they mixed with Germanic conquerors, so the East Germans of today are the descendants of them.

[Dr. Robotnik the Subbotnik]

Yes, they cluster closer to Poles than to the Dutch.

It's probably because of them being descended from Slavs who got Germanized over time....

[Mortimer]

Many German surnames as well as place names are Slavic in origin, yes. From long ago. So it would be more distant Slavic ancestry, Slavs who got Germanized over time by Germanic conquerors. It is true that at one point in history there were only Slavs in what is now East Germany. They never left, rather they mixed with Germanic conquerors, so the East Germans of today are the descendants of them.

im not sure, some say so, but some others would say that even west poland was once part german and the slavs came later when the germans left. whatever it is east germans do have slavic ancestry im sure

[Dr. Robotnik the Subbotnik]

im not sure, some say so, but some others would say that even west poland was once part german and the slavs came later when the germans left. whatever it is east germans do have slavic ancestry im sure

That's false, though. Slavs inhabited what is now East Germany before arrival of Germanic conquerors, I believe. If somehow Germans were there first, it doesn't change the fact that there was a great Slavic presence there for a long time, and these people never left but rather got Germanized....

[Ouistreham]

Many German surnames as well as place names are Slavic in origin, yes.

Because German surnames ending in -ow or -itz were borrowed from placenames (East of a Lübeck-Nürnberg line).
Consequently, such surnames do not necessarily mean some Slavic ancestry.

East German identity comes from Slavic identity. What separates Prussian aristocrats from West German hillbilly scum (related to the Dutch)

Don't forget that the Drang nach Osten, the powerful thrust to the East that in the late Middle-Ages allowed German colonists to expand for about 800 miles into former Slavic land, was fuelled by substantial migrations from Rhineland, Holland and Flanders too!

Of course, there must have been some interbreeding with Slavic population, but not that much. It's a fact that in the former GDR there were more Polish- or Russian-looking people than, say, in Lower Saxony. But the German conquest based upon a potent demographic growth, and superior farming techniques (brought in from Rhineland and the Low Countries, go figure!). The Slavs were back then very backwards, deemed as savages, they were unable to resist the Germanic advance.

Culturally, Prussia was just as German as the rest of Germany, even more more so. Germanic national consciousness arose on the frontline facing the Slavic world. It's not just by chance that the leading political centres of Germany were in Berlin and Vienna, originally on the Eastern frontier.

[Dr. Robotnik the Subbotnik]

Because German surnames ending in -ow or -itz were borrowed to placenames (East of a Lübeck-Nürnberg line).
Such surnames do not necessarily mean some Slavic ancestry.


Don't forget that the Drang nach Osten, the powerful thrust to the East that, in the late Middle-Ages, allowed German colonists to expand for about 800 miles into former Slavic land, was fuelled by important migrations from Rhineland, Holland and Flanders too!

Of course, there must have been some interbreeding with Slavic population, but not that much. It's a fact that in the former GDR there were more Polish- or Russian-looking people than, say, in Lower Saxony. But the German conquest based upon a potent demographic growth, and superior farming techniques (brought in from Rhineland and the Low Countries, go figure!). The Slavs were back then very backwards, deemed as savages, unable to resist the Germanic advance.

Culturally, Prussia was just as German as the rest of Germany, even more more so. Germanic national consciousness arose on the frontline facing the Slavic world. It's not just by chance that the leading political centres of Germany were in Berlin and Vienna, originally on the Eastern frontier.

I agree with what you say. I know that the Slavs did not leave, though, rather they got Germanized and I think most ethnic Germans in East Germany probably descend from this lot.

[Imamudin]

It's a fact that in the former GDR there were more Polish- or Russian-looking people than, say, in Lower Saxony.

East Germans are not Russian looking. Not nearly. Germans (West and East) and Poles have generally a similar appearance.

[StonyArabia]

East Germans are partially Baltic the Prussians were a Baltic people originally.

[Ouistreham]

I know that the Slavs did not leave, though, rather they got Germanized

In the Middle-Age and Renaissance times, the Slavs couldn't but flee. They had to leave, they were no match, the civilizational gap was too big.
Things changed after about 1550. Poland became also a modern State, and to some extent Russia too.

Note that in the years 1550-1650, there was a general shift to the east: France took control of Lorraine and Alsace, Prussian expansion continued in the East, Poland included at some time all of present-day Belarus and Ukraina, and the Russians were conqueering Siberia.

From that moment Prussia began to assimilate some Slavs. It was a slow process. In Napoleonic times, French officers reported that in some remote places of the Mark Brandenburg, quite close to Berlin's suburbs, common peasants were still using a strange dialect that wasn't anything German. Similar observations were made in Pomerania. Afterwards, the Prussian State introduced universal education and military service, assimilation of Lutheran Slavic populations took place on a large scale in the course of the 19th century (some Kashubians and Sorbs managed to more or less resist Germanization though). But the process bumped into a limit in Upper Silesia, where Catholic Slavs developed explicit Polish national feelings.

My point is: historical Prussia as we know it and as King Friedrich of Prussia built it, had nothing Slavic. But the German Empire of the late 19th century absorbed some Slavic component, yes.

[Black Wolf]

Yes and vice versa as well. Western Poles also have some Germanic ancestry.