History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 278

FLEMINGS IN GERMANY
DER FLAEMING
During the second half of the fifth century, as a result of the collapse of the Hunnic
empire, the area between Elbe-Saale and the Oder rivers, coresponding roughly to the
former East Germany, was depopulated, as the various Germanic tribes moved
toward the Mediteranean world.In the course of the late fifth and seventh centuries the
poplulation vacuum was filled by the Slavic people.They assimilated the remnants of
the Germanic population, and the entire territory by the seventh century was Slavic
speaking.Consequently by the early tenth century the Germanic-Slavic frontier, in that