North German Plain in the context of "East Frisia"

Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Germanic languages.

A defining feature of Proto-Germanic is the completion of the process described by Grimm's law, a set of sound changes that occurred between its status as a dialect of Proto-Indo-European and its gradual divergence into a separate language. The end of the Common Germanic period is reached with the beginning of the Migration Period in the fourth century AD.

Leipzig is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the eighth-largest city in Germany and is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region. Leipzig is located about 150 km (90 mi) southwest of Berlin, in the southernmost part of the North German Plain (the Leipzig Bay), at the confluence of the White Elster and its tributaries Pleiße and Parthe.

Leipzig has been a trade city since at least the time of the Holy Roman Empire. Via Regia and the Via Imperii, two important medieval trade routes, intersected here, marking the city's economic importance. The Leipzig Trade Fair dates back to 1190. Between 1764 and 1945, the city was a centre of publishing. After the Second World War, Leipzig remained a major urban centre in East Germany. But overall, because of isolation behind the Iron Curtain, its cultural and economic importance declined. Events in Leipzig in 1989 played a significant role in precipitating the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, mainly through demonstrations starting from St. Nicholas Church. Since the early 2000s, Leipzig has experienced substantial transformation, marked by urban and economic revitalisation as well as the modernisation of its transport infrastructure.

The Thuringian Forest (Thüringer Wald in German pronounced [ˈtyːʁɪŋɐ ˈvalt] ) is a mountain range in the southern parts of the German state of Thuringia, running northwest to southeast. Skirting from its southerly source in foothills to a gorge on its north-west side is the Werra valley. On the other side of the Forest is an upper outcrop of the North German Plain, the Thuringian Basin, which includes the city of Erfurt. The south and south-east continuation of the range is the highland often called the Thuringian-Vogtlandian Slate Mountains.

Among scattered foothills at its northern foot are the towns Eisenach, Gotha and Arnstadt. The towns of Ilmenau and Suhl sit in slight dips on the range itself to the north and south respectively.

The master race (German: Herrenrasse [ˈhɛʁənˌʁasə]) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology, in which the putative Aryan race is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as master humans (Herrenmenschen [ˈhɛʁənˌmɛnʃn̩]).

The Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg believed that the "Nordic race" was descended from Proto-Indo-Europeans, who he thought had pre-historically dwelt on the North German Plain and it was not impossible that the Nordic race ultimately originated on the lost island of Atlantis. The Nazis declared that the Aryans were superior to all other races, and believed they were entitled to expand territorially. The actual policy that was implemented by the Nazis resulted in the Aryan certificate. This document, which was required by law for all citizens of the Reich, was the "Lesser Aryan certificate" (Kleiner Ariernachweis) and could be obtained through an Ahnenpass, which required the owner to trace their lineage through baptism, birth certificates, or certified proof thereof that all grandparents were of "Aryan descent".

The North European hypothesis is a linguistic and archaeological theory that tries to explain the spread of the Indo-European languages in Europe and parts of Asia by locating the original homeland (Urheimat) in southern Scandinavia or in the North German Plain. This hypothesis, advanced by Karl Penka, Hermann Hirt, Gustaf Kossinna and others, had some success in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. However, given its association with Nazism, and even more decisively given the subsequent rise of the Kurgan hypothesis (developed out of the more general steppe hypothesis of the 19th century), it is now a fringe theory only supported by a minority of scholars, typically in a variant known as the Neolithic creolisation hypothesis.

The Rössen culture or Roessen culture (German: Rössener Kultur) is a Central European culture of the middle Neolithic (4,600–4,300 BC).

It is named after the necropolis of Rössen (part of Leuna, in the Saalekreis district, Saxony-Anhalt). The Rössen culture has been identified in 11 of the 16 states of Germany (it is only absent from the Northern part of the North German Plain), but also in the southeast Low Countries, northeast France, northern Switzerland and a small part of Austria.

The Magdeburg Börde (German: Magdeburger Börde) is the central landscape unit of the state of Saxony-Anhalt and lies to the west and south of the eponymous state capital Magdeburg. Part of a loess belt stretching along the southeastern rim of the North German Plain, it is noted for its very fertile Chernozem soils.