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Originating about 1800 BC from the Corded Ware Culture on the North German plain, the Germanic peoples expanded into southern Scandinavia and toward the Vistula river during the Nordic Bronze Age, reaching the lower Danube by 200 BC.

In the 2nd century BC, the Teutons and the Cimbri clashed with Rome.

By the time of Julius Caesar, a group of Germans led by the Suebian chieftain Ariovistus were expanding into Gaul, until stopped by Caesar at the battle of Vosges.

Subsequent attempts by Emperor Augustus to annex territories east of the Rhine were abandoned, after Arminius annihilated three Roman legions at the Battle of the Teutoburg forest in 9 AD.

At the time, German soldiers were massively recruited into the Roman Army, notably forming the personal bodyguard of the Roman Emperor.

In the east, East Germanic tribes that had migrated from Scandinavia to the lower Vistula pushed southwards, pressing the Marcomanni to invade Italy in 166.

Meanwhile, the Germans had through influence from Italic scripts devised their own Runic alphabet.

By the 3rd century, the Goths ruled a vast area north of the Black Sea from where they either through crossing the lower Danube or traveling by sea, raided the Balkan Peninsula and Anatolia as far as Cyprus.

Meanwhile, the growing confederations of Franks and Alemanni broke through the frontier fortifications and settled along the Rhine frontier, invading Gaul, Hispania and Italy as far as North Africa, while Saxon pirates ravaged the Western Europen coasts.

After the Huns in the 4th century invaded the territories of the Gothic King Ermanaric, which at its peak stretched between the Danube and the Volga river, and from the Black to the Baltic Sea, thousands of Goths fled into the Balkans, defeating the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople and sacking Rome in 410, while thousands of Germans were crossing the Rhine.

Meanwhile, several Germanic tribes were converted to Arian Christianity by the missionary Wulfila, who devised an alphabet to translate the Bible into the Gothic language.