When the Germans made their mass exodus from the Baltic States in 1939, they admitted thereby that their alleged cultural mission in the Baltic area, which had been conducted for several centuries, was a complete failure, and that they had not succeeded in their push to the northeastern Baltic, regarded in Germany since early medieval times as the land of milk and honey. Foodstuffs were available there in quantity, such as dried and smoked meats and fish, honey, vegetables, rye, oats, barley, and wheat, as well as raw materials (timber, tar, hemp, flax, rope, sailcloth, tallow, wool, hides, potash, wax, furs and amber). There was an increasing demand for these goods in Western Europe, the population of which had considerably grown since the early Middle Ages.