>>17925591
True, many settlers from Germany and the Low Countries were simply invited by local slavic rulers in order to develop the territory. What I find interesting is that those "colonies" had their own city rights, like the Magdeburg or Lübeck Laws, but still were part of the holdings the respective slavic territorial lords. And many of those german city laws persisted well into the 18th or even 19th centuries.
>>17925655
As did the Poles and Lithuanians. The high middle ages were not a charity event.