Danube once appears as the mother of Vrtra, "a dragon blocking the course of the rivers." The Finnish word for Danube is Tonava, which is most likely derived from the word for the river in Swedish and German, "Donau". Its Sámi name "Deatnu" means "Great River". It is possible that "dānu" in Scythian as in Avestan was a generic word for "river": "Dnieper" and "Dniestr", from "Danapris" and "Danastius", are presumed to continue Scythian "*dānu apara" "far river" and "*dānu nazdya-" "near river", respectively. The river was known to the ancient Greeks as the "Istros" (Ἴστρος) a borrowing from a Daco-Thracian
Nazi rule over the Danube River transforming Germany into an economic autarky. The Danube was considered to be the main route along which this stream of raw materials was to be transported to Germany proper. Hitler referred to the Danube as the "river of the future". At other times he was more explicit about its role in the German-dominated Europe: In view of these intentions, various proposals to establish permanent German possession of the entire Danubian waterway were formulated by the Nazis. One of these proposed the settlement of all the ethnic Germans in Southeastern Europe along a broad strip of territory on both sides of