The first, most daunting challenge confronting German rule in the East was a matter of sheer scale: the extent of the captured spaces. When the great advances of 1915 ended by fall, the Eastern Front stabilized, and Germans found themselves in possession of 160,000 square kilometers (62,500 square miles) of new lands, which seemed to be “in wild disorder.” The army would have to impose its own control. From this strategic imperative, the administration leapt to a vastly more comprehensive vision and ambition, summed up under the name of “Verkehrspolitik” –the “movement policy,” which would pave the way for permanent possession of these new lands. Verkehrspolitik was a startling, modern vision of controlling the land totally, by commanding all movement in it and through it. Ober Ost, just to the east of Germany, was closed off, reserved for the military and its purposes. Its land was then divided up, creating a grid of control in which military authorities could direct every movement: of troops, requisitioned products, raw materials, all resources including manpower. Eventually, authorities sought to mobilize not only native manpower, but also the native ethnicities as collective units, aiming to define their place in the larger cultural plan for these territories, through a program of cultural work. What Verkehrspolitik accomplished on the ground, a parallel cultural program tried to duplicate within people's heads, changing their identities.