Völkerwanderung

Völkerwanderung, the migration of peoples in Europe, which intensified from the 4th c. to the 6th c. ad. Attributed by historians to climatic and economic factors, including the attraction of the prosperous Roman Empire, this migration begins for Germany with the crossing of the Danube by the West Goths in 376. For some two centuries unpredictable migrations of East Goths, West Goths, Vandals, and others took place in central Europe. The settling of the Lango-bards in North Italy in 568 is usually regarded as the close of the period of migrations. In his polemical essay Die Große Wanderung (1992), H. M. Enzensberger uses the migration as an analogy for the current period of fundamental change.