Frontières en mouvement (Frontem)

The Danish-German-Frisian Region – A Best Practice Example?

Martin Klatt

In this article, I scrutinise the Danish-German-Frisian borderland of Schleswig. This region and its majority-minority settlement are often perceived as a best-practice model of how to reconcile a national conflict and accommodate national minorities.¹ The Danish-German minority settlement is characterised by respective recognition by the state of residence and generous kin-state financial support to operate minority educational and cultural institutions, primarily organised as member-driven private associations. In principle, it ensures the possibility to live as a Dane in South Schleswig or as a German in North Schleswig from cradle to grave. It is often forgotten, though, that Frisians but also Sinti and Roma, two of the other four recognised national minorities in Germany, reside in the region. These minorities do not have a kin-state, and their situation is slightly different.

This article is a product of research financed by the Jean Monnet network Frontiers in Motion (Frontem), which states as is objective:

“The objective of the Frontem network is therefore to propose a critical reading of the “Europe without borders” model. It starts from the observation that the EU has developed a unilateral view on the border which essentially only takes into account its economic character whilst neglecting other aspects, more symbolic or political. The hypothesis put forward is that the border in the political sense has never disappeared and that it should be analyzed by taking into account its ambivalence as an identity limit and an object of separation, but also as a place of contact and exchange”.²

Here, especially, I will focus on the second part of the hypothesis, to analyse the border by focusing on its ambivalence as an identity limit and a place of contact and exchange. This leads to the research question of whether the Danish-German border region, with its accommodation of national minorities and reconciliation of national conflict, can be understood as a best practice example. Here, of course, it must be asked “a best practice of what?” I will scrutinise six lenses: a best practice of border determination?; a best practice of national minority construction?; a best practice of reconciliation?; a best practice of cross-border cooperation, in politics, people-to-people and business?; a best practice of an integrated cross-border living space (labour market, public services, residential space, creative industries economies); and thus, a best practice of diversity accommodation?

Three theoretical approaches will be used as analytical frameworks: Oscar Martinez concept of national and transnational borderlanders,³ Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly’s four lenses theory of borderland studies,⁴ and Bas Spierings’ and Martin van der Velde’s concept of unfamiliarity.⁵ Oscar Martinez has developed a four stages model of borderlands: alienated, coexistent, interdependent, and integrated borderlands.⁶ In addition, he examined borderland populations and differentiated between national and transnational borderlanders. When examining contemporary EU borders, Martinez’ model’s weakness, in the author’s opinion, lies that all intra-EU borderlands pendulate somewhere in the interdependent-integrated sphere. There are definitely interdependencies in all EU borderlands, but cross-sectoral integration in form of shared public services, integrated labour markets, joint policymaking and political decision-making, etc., is difficult to spot, with few sectoral exceptions.⁷ Therefore, I will primarily focus on the national-transnational borderlanders dichotomy, when focusing on people living in the Danish-German border region, with regard to points two and five. Martinez considers national borderlanders as:

“People who, while subject to foreign economic and cultural influences, have minimal or only superficial contacts with the opposite side of the border, owing either to their indifference to their next-door neighbours or their unwillingness or inability to function in any significant way in another society”.⁸

Transnational borderlanders, on the other hand, are:

“Individuals who maintain significant ties with the neighbouring nation. They seek to overcome obstacles that impede such contact and take advantage of every opportunity to visit, shop, work, study, or even live on the other side. Thus, their lifestyles strongly reflect foreign influences. […] but for those who are deeply immersed in transborder interaction, foreign links govern central parts of their lives”.⁹

Brunet-Jailly’s model of borderlands uses four lenses to analyse border regions: market forces and trade flows, policy activities of multiple levels of government, local cross-border culture, and local cross-border political clout (Figure 1).

These four lenses are interdependent, but there is no clear hierarchy in Brunet-Jailly’s model. Empiric evidence, in the author’s opinion, demonstrates clearly that market forces and trade flows are a dominant catalyst initiating the activation of the three other lenses.¹¹ It will be used to measure and analyse points four, five and six.

Spierings’ and van der Velde’s concept of unfamiliarity¹² explains the reluctance to move across borders even in intra EU borderlands, where no physical barriers or government restrictions to cross borders should exist (Figure 2).

Spierings and van der Velde argue that it is not enough to focus on rational differences when analysing motives to cross or not to cross borders. In addition, emotional differences play a role. Perceptions of otherness can both repel or encourage cross-border interaction, creating a bandwidth of unfamiliarity, within which differences are tolerated. In Schleswig, with a majority-minority and a minority-kin-state setting, this approach becomes interesting as it widens the cultural and linguistic scope of borderland populations. We should expect different bandwidths of unfamiliarity here than in other intra EU borderlands. The bandwidth of unfamiliarity may be tied to the share and degree of transnational borderlanders¹⁴ as dependent variable.

A Best Practice of Border Determination

Today’s Danish-German border is a product of the post WW I peace order. It divided the former Duchy of Schleswig, a territory having caused a national conflict between Danish and German nation state projects in the 19^th century (See Figure 3).¹⁵

Schleswig had been a Danish fief, but since medieval times connected to Holstein, a fief of the Holy Roman Empire. A Schleswig-Holstein proto-state developed under the Schauenburg dynasty in the 15^th century. When the last Schauenburg duke died childless in 1459, the regional nobility decided to elect Danish king Christian I (one of the last duke’s three nephews) as their duke. This personal union with the Danish crown lasted until the Danish-German war of 1864, when Prussia overtook Schleswig-Holstein. Germany’s defeat in World War I brought the Schleswig-question on the agenda of the Paris Peace Conference, where it was decided to submit the region to a plebiscite.¹⁶

The exact location of the border was negotiated between Denmark and the Allies at the peace conference, where Denmark insisted on implementation by plebiscite. The terms of this plebiscite, applying two zones voting on 10 February and 12 March 1920, followed a design outlined by the North Schleswig Danes leading political figure H.P. Hanssen. It was based on the “Clausen Line,” a line already demarcated around 1900 by a Danish historian as the most southern and best practical line demarcating the part of the lost territory, which Denmark could successfully reintegrate while preserving Denmark as a nation state. This line became the national border between Denmark and Germany in 1920.¹⁸ The plebiscite modalities involved two zones: a northern zone between the 1864-border at the Kongeå and the Clausen line, and a southern zone stretching from the North Sea islands of Sylt, Amrum and Föhr across the midlands of Schleswig. The Clausen line reflected both national and geographical considerations by going south around the Western towns of Tønder and Højer, which both eventually proved to have significant German majorities.¹⁹ Voting in the northern zone was en-bloc, while the southern zone voted by parish, opening for local changes of the future border. This provision was especially designed for the city of Flensburg, the region’s demographic and economic centre. In Flensburg, a majority (of the male population over 25) had voted for a Danish oriented candidate at the elections to the North German Reichstag in 1867, but Danish votes had decreased to less than 5 % in the last pre-war Reichstag elections in 1912. Nonetheless, nationalist Danes put a strong campaign focus on the city and hoped to regain it. All men and women over 20 years of age, having resided within the plebiscite area since or before 1 January 1900, were eligible to vote in the plebiscite. This rule was a compromise to account for German in – and Danish outmigration since 1864 and resulted in mobilisation activities of former Schleswigians, stretching all the way to the United States.²⁰

The results of the plebiscite confirmed Clausen’s prediction: 75 % of the voters in the northern zone voted for Denmark, and 80 % in the southern zone voted for Germany. Flensburg had 25 % Danish votes, but the cities of Tønder (80 %), Aabenraa and Sønderborg of the northern zone had German majorities, as did some rural parishes. Therefore, the post-1920 German minority in Denmark as well as most politicians from Schleswig-Holstein did not acknowledge the plebiscite results and demanded a renegotiation of the 1920 border; demands that became more aggressive with the Nazi takeover in 1933.²¹ The border was also challenged by national activists in Denmark during the interwar years,²² but especially after the surrender of Nazi-Germany in 1945.²³ West Germany’s integration into North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1955 implemented acceptance of the 1920-border by both countries’ governments.²⁴ Nevertheless, in South Schleswig, suspicion on the Danish minority’s as well as Danish nationalist circles long-term aim of border revision continued well into the 1960s. This changed when Denmark accessed the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, opening for a discourse of de-bordering and cooperation on the German side. This discourse was not fully reciprocated in Denmark until the Millennium.²⁵ In 2020, when the border’s 100^th anniversary was celebrated, discourse centred around a “best border of the world” narrative: democratically decided upon, nationally optimal and a meeting point rather than a border dividing people.²⁶ 100 years after the decision, no serious politician challenges the position of the border. Neither do the members of the reciprocal kin-minorities, nor people in general. In effect, though today presented as exemplary, the model to let people vote on the actual location of a national border, has not been repeated since anywhere in the world.