East Elbia

As Ostelbien, in the period before the Second World War, the territories of Prussia and of Mecklenburg -Schwerin and Strelitz referred to the east of the Elbe were. However, the term was not strictly geographically specific meaning but was meant more as a critical designation and identification of the political and social realities of a larger region. Ostelbien included the states of Mecklenburg -Schwerin, Mecklenburg -Strelitz, the Mark Brandenburg, part of the Province of Saxony (Altmark, Jerichower country), Pomerania, Posen, West Prussia and the boundary Posen- West Prussia, Silesia and East Prussia. Together, these tracts of land was the imprint of Agriculture, landlordism, the predominantly Protestant denomination and political conservatism in the population. Berlin was not considered the "real " Ostelbien because of its urbanity.

The landowner of the area helped the colloquial name Ostelbier or Junker and played a determining role in everyday life. Often they dominated the area politically and certain as former ruling elite of Prussia large parts of the all-German policy. So it was in the more than 10,000 agricultural estates, which accounted for a significant portion of the area east of the Elbe and existed until the late 1920s, no local interest groups as in the other communities. The term " east of the Elbe Junker " designated a certain social class of noble landowners and was often used in the sense of " reactionary."

The name Ostelbien as a collective term for the territories east of the Elbe reaches historic back even further, up to the time of Charlemagne, regardless of whether it was not part of the Holy Roman Empire and later became part of.

Today it houses the former Ostelbien still the Land of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg- Vorpommern, the east of the Elbe situated part of Saxony-Anhalt and the now the Free State of Saxony belonging district of Görlitz on German territory.