Mythos Völkerwanderung: Migration oder Expansion bei den “Ursprüngen Europas”

The destruction brought about by the Germanic peoples while advancing into the Roman Empire did not diminish the significance of the ancient culture because, for the most part, the immigrants became acculturated. On the other hand the migrants wanted to protect their own characteristics, for example by conversion to non-Roman Christianity, thereby preventing total assimilation. Typically, cultural hybridizations resulted from an additive union of both elements. A cross-cultural interaction with real innovations became possible where the migrants did not have to fear for their identity. The best example of this is the Franks, who, during their advances through Gaul, did not give up the connections to their homeland and who, in sharp contrast to long distance migrations of other “gentes,” could expect a further influx of supporters from their homeland. It was not the migrating but the expanding “gentes” that played a crucial role in the origins of Europe. The limited importance of migrations becomes clear if one considers that one of the most important civilized peoples of developing Europe, the Irish, did not migrate and that the immense expansion of the Slavs throughout Eastern Europe was the result of expansion rather than by migration.