Recovered or
Regained Territories (, literally "Regained Lands") was an official term used by the
People's Republic of Poland to describe the territory of the former
Free City of Danzig and the parts of pre-war
Germany that became part of Poland after
World War II. The rationale for the term "Recovered" was the
Piast Concept that these territories were once part of the traditional Polish homeland. They had been part of, or
fiefs of, a Polish state during the medieval
Piast dynasty. Over the centuries, however, they had become Germanized through the processes of German eastward settlement
(Ostsiedlung) and political expansion
(Drang nach Osten) and for the most part did not even contain a Polish-speaking minority.