Suebi

Suebi ( also Suevi, Suavi, Suabi ) or Swabians was the collective name for dozens of eastern Germanic people south of the Baltic sea, from the Elbe river to the Vistula river in Magna Germania.

With Roman empire take-overs , Huns, Avars , Slavs were pushed into Germania . This in turn pushed many of the eastern Germanic tribes further west from the Vistula to the Oder and to the Elbe rivers and the Rhine river.

Some tribes , like the Langobardi (later called Lombards) ,from areas south of the Baltic Sea were pushed south into Italy. One group of Suebi from the Mare Suebicum , or Baltic Sea, settled in the Rhine river area . There they are currently known as Schwaben. Their territory became known as Schwabenland ,which consists of a section of Elsass or Alsatia , Switzerland and Germany . The Swabian land is today in Germany : Baden-Wuerttemberg.

The Schwaben Gau or land was at the time of Charlemagne and before him , sectioned in districts called Gaue .

Northern Swabians Parts of the Swabians from eastern Germany had remained halfways between the Baltic Sea and the Rhineland area. At the time of Eike von Repgow 's historical accounts, Swabians , were known to have lived in the Harz mountains (south-west of Berlin). This account records a number of noble Swabian families of Germany , interspersed with Frankish and Thueringians.

At the time of king Siegbert I (ca 570 AD ) Swabians lived in the Harz region . They were then called northern Swabians (Nordschwaben), in contrast to the (later southern) Swabians at the Rhine river . Saxons are mentioned on a return trip from Italy in 573 , where they had gone in 568 to help the Langobards . These returning Saxons came across northern Swabians in the Harz area ( today Germany : Sachsen-Anhalt) .