The Danish ethnic minority in Southern Schleswig

Southern Schleswig

Southern Schleswig denotes the southern half of the former Duchy of Schleswig on the Jutland Peninsula. The geographical area today covers the thirty or forty northernmost kilometers of Germany up to the Flensburg Fjord, where it borders on Denmark...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, has existed by this name since 1920, when the Schleswig Plebiscite split German-ruled Schleswig

Schleswig

Schleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark; the territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany...

 into two parts: Northern Schleswig, with a Danish majority and a German minority was united with Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

, while Southern Schleswig remained a part of Germany and had a German majority and Danish and Frisian minority populations. One of the most common names they use to describe themselves is danske sydslesvigere (Danish South Schleswigians).

Denmark has continued to support the minority financially. Danish schools and organizations have been run only in Flensburg

Flensburg

Flensburg is an independent town in the north of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg is the centre of the region of Southern Schleswig...

 since 1920, and since 1926 throughout the greater region. Before the adoption of the democratic Weimar Constitution

Weimar constitution

The Constitution of the German Reich , usually known as the Weimar Constitution was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic...

 it was not allowed to teach in another language than German in school (apart from religious education lessons).

Membership in the Danish minority has been fluid since 1945, as objective criteria like e.g. the language to distinguish a German Schleswigian from a Danish are not taken into account, since German law prohibits government registration of persons due to their ethnic origins. Membership in Germany's ethnic minorities is based on self-identification only.

Also, the 1955 Copenhagen-Bonn Declarations explicitly state that an individual's membership of the German minority in Denmark or the Danish minority in Germany may not be a matter of scrutiny from the respective governments. Also many Schleswigians on both sides of the border are of mixed extraction. While after the 1920-plebiscite between 6,000 and 8,000 Danes found themselves in Southern Schleswig and even more than 12,000 people had voted for Denmark in 1920, only about 3,000 were organised in the association by the end of the war.

After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, many people chose to join the Danish minority in hopes of joining the much more prosperous Denmark, partly caused by a wish to live in a free and democratic country, partly motivated by social hardships in the aftermath of the war that played another distinctive role, especially as over one million refugees had come to Schleswig-Holstein and also a high proportion of the 'new Danes' had a lower class background, while only very few of the old elite changed nationality. As the Danish government provided food aid to the minority during 1945–49 this contingent became derogatorily known as "Speckdänen", ie. "bacon Dane". At the end of 1946 the minority had thus reached a membership of 62,000 and in 1948 78,000. The Danish political party got almost 99,500 votes in 1947.

However, the Danish government and the British Occupation Zone governors both opposed Southern Schleswig rejoining the Kingdom, and a referendum was never held in Southern Schleswig. Controversy over the issue divided two of the main Danish parties, and both Venstre

Venstre (Denmark)

VenstreThe party name is officially not translated into any other language, but is in English often referred to as the Liberal Party. Similar rules apply for the name of the party's youth wing Venstres Ungdom. , full name Venstre, Danmarks Liberale Parti , is the largest political party in Denmark...

leader and Prime Minister Knud Kristensen

Knud Kristensen

Knud Kristensen was Prime Minister of Denmark 7 November 1945 to 13 November 1947 in the first elected government after the German occupation of Denmark during World War II. After the October 1945 election Knud Kristensen formed the Cabinet of Knud Kristensen, a minority government consisting...

 and Conservative

Conservative People's Party (Denmark)

The Conservative People's Party , also known as Conservatives is a Danish political party.-History:The party was founded 1915 based mostly on its predecessor, Højre , but also on the Free Conservatives and a moderate faction of Venstre , the liberals.The party has participated in several coalition...

 leader John Christmas Møller

John Christmas Møller

Guido Leo John Christmas Møller, usually known as Christmas Møller was a Danish politician representing the Conservative People's Party.-Life:...

 ultimately broke with their respective parties over the issue. In 1953 the so-called Programm Nord (Northern Programme) was set up by the Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...

 state government to help the area economically. This caused the Danish minority to decline until the 1970s. Since then, the minority has slowly been gaining size and is still growing as it has become fashionable to be a Dane in Germany (albeit in Central and Southern Germany), and these days numbers around 50,000, although only a number of between 8,000 and 10,000 of them speak Danish in everyday life. Among 10,000 and 20,000 of them have Danish as their mother tongue.

The fluctuation of the Danish minority is reflected also in the respective literature that describes the local phenomenon of changing national self-identification with the terminus "New Danes". The number of Danes vary e.g. in "Fischers Weltalmanach" (World Almanac), having been specified with 30,000 until 1994, then having risen suddenly up to 60,000 in 1995 and finally having been reduced to 50,000 since the year 2001. The source for the number of Danes in the minority is the „Beratender Ausschuß für Fragen der dänischen Minderheit beim Bundesminister des Innern“, a consulting commission in the Ministry of the Interior, composed of representatives of the ministry itself, two members of each party in the German parliament, the Commissary for Minorities of Schleswig-Holstein and three members of Danish party (2) and association (1). The numbers of members and also of users of the minority's organisations (sport clubs, culture associations, playschools, schools, libraries, etc.) and likewise the number of electors of the Danish party are considered to indicate people being Danish, although it has to be mentioned that the data records of the organisations are not linked among themselves and - what is more - the majority of users and members do not have Danish as their mother tongue.

The Danish minority is represented by the South Schleswig Voter Federation

South Schleswig Voter Federation

The South Schleswig Voter Federation is a regional political party in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany...

 (SSW) in the Diet (Landtag) of Schleswig-Holstein

Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein

The Schleswig-Holstein Landtag is the state diet of the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein. It convenes in the state's capital Kiel and currently consists of 95 members of six parties. Its main competences are in the fields of education, culture, regional planning and domestic politics...

. The SSW is not subject to the general requirement of passing a 5% vote threshold in order to receive proportional seats in the state parliament. In the most recent 2009 election, the SSW received 4.3% of the vote and four seats. The SSW is also represented in several municipal parliaments.

External links

• 1955 Bonn-Copenhagen Declarations on rights of Danish minority in Southern Schleswig and German minority in Northern Schleswig
• The Danish minority
• Information about the Danish minority