Völkerwanderung, or the 'wandering of the people', was a term used by German historians in the 19th century to describe the migrations of the
Goths,
Vandals,
Franks and other Germanic peoples at the time of the break-up of the Roman Empire. The expansion of Germans into central Europe, France, Russia, England, Northern Italy and elsewhere was said to indicate the energy and dynamism of Germanic people. This became part of nineteenth century German nationalism, and later helped form the
Nazi ideology of '
lebensraum', or 'living space', the theory that the Germans had an ethnic right to expand their population beyond the national borders of Germany.