This is the first attempt to redress the injustice done to the memory of German minorities by the popular equation of ‘Lebensraum’ and Nazism; minorities, many of whom chose to be neighbours rather than enemies and who over time peacefully shared with other nationalities the territorial space east of the Reich. Their borderland experiences, particularly in the Baltic region, the historic interface between East and West, are all the more relevant as Hitler’s regime recedes into the past and Europe seeks to renew itself in the wake of the Cold War.