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 Denmark |  Germany |
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Denmark and Germany are full members of NATO and of the European Union. The border between the countries, which lies in the Schleswig region, has changed several times through history, the present border was determined by referendums in 1920. The Danish-German border area has been named as a positive example for other border regions. [1] Substantial minority populations live on both sides of the border, and cross-border cooperation activities are frequently initiated. [2] [3]
Chalcedonian Christianity was introduced to Denmark in the 9th century by Ansgar, Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. In the 10th century, King Harald Bluetooth became a Catholic and began organizing the church, and by the 11th century, Christianity was largely accepted throughout the country. Since the Reformation in Denmark, the church has been Evangelical Lutheran, while retaining much of its high church pre-Reformation liturgical traditions. The 1849 Constitution of Denmark designated the church "the Danish people's church" and mandates that the state support it as such. [4] The Church of Denmark continues to maintain the historical episcopate. Theological authority is vested in bishops: ten bishops in mainland Denmark and one in Greenland, each overseeing a diocese. The bishop of Copenhagen is primus inter pares .
The Second Schleswig War was the second military conflict as a result of the Schleswig-Holstein Question. It began on 1 February 1864, when Prussian forces crossed the border into Schleswig.
Denmark fought Prussia and Austria. Like the First Schleswig War (1848–51), it was fought for control of the duchies because of succession disputes concerning the duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg when the Danish king died without an heir acceptable to the German Confederation. Decisive controversy arose due to the passing of the November Constitution, which brought the Duchy of Schleswig closer to the kingdom of Denmark in violation of the London Protocol, after the German Confederation had rejected the previous state constitution (Helstatsforfatning).
The war ended on 30 October 1864, when the Treaty of Vienna caused Denmark's cession of the Duchies of Schleswig, Holstein, and Saxe-Lauenburg to Prussia and Austria. The war resulted in a German victory.
Denmark, despite having remained neutral all throughout World War I, still ended up involved in the negotiations following the defeat of Germany, due to US President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points listing the different people of Europe's right to self-determination amongst its principles, and the substantial Danish minority living in the Southern Jutland/Northern Schleswig area. Eventually, it was decided that the question of national affiliation for the people living in the area would be settled through a democratic election.
In accordance with negotiations, the Southern Jutland/Northern Schleswig area was split into three different zones. After an agreement between the Danish government, who declared they had no real interest in the third, southernmost zone, and the British prime-minister Lloyd George, who wanted to give Germany some minor concessions in the peace treaty, it was decided that no election was to take place there, while elections were to take place in the two other zones.
The elections could not be arranged until the Treaty of Versailles became effective in January 1920, but following that it was decided that elections were to take place in the first, northernmost zone on 10 February, and the second, middle zone on 14 March. In the outcome of the first zone election, about 75 percent of the votes favored a reunification with Denmark, while in the second zone about 80 percent of the votes were in favor of staying affiliated with Germany. Further negotiations between the Danish and the German governments settled on Denmark getting the area of Tønder, despite it formally being a part of the second zone, while the Flensborg area was to remain on German hands. On 15 June the Southern Jutland area was formally returned to Danish control.
Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. The name comes from the German for Operation Weser-Exercise, the Weser being a German river.
In the early morning of 9 April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, ostensibly as a preventive maneuver against a planned, and openly discussed, Franco-British occupation of both these countries. After the invasions, envoys of the Germans informed the governments of Denmark and Norway that the Wehrmacht had come to protect the countries' neutrality against Franco-British aggression. Significant differences in geography, location and climate between the two countries, however, made the actual military operations very dissimilar.
Strategically, Denmark's importance to Germany was as a staging area for operations in Norway, and of course as a border nation to Germany which would have to be controlled in some way. Given Denmark's position in relation to the Baltic Sea the country was also important for the control of naval and shipping access to major German and Soviet harbours.
Small and relatively flat, the country was ideal territory for German army operations, and Denmark's small army had little hope. Nevertheless, in the early morning hours, a few Danish troops engaged the German army, suffering losses of 16 dead and 20 wounded. The Germans lost an unknown number of casualties, with 12 armoured cars and several motorcycles and cars destroyed. Four German tanks were damaged. One German bomber was also damaged. [5] Two German soldiers were temporarily captured by the Danes during the brief fighting. [6]
At 04:00 on 9 April 1940, the German ambassador to Denmark, Renthe-Fink, called the Danish Foreign Minister Munch and requested a meeting with him. When the two men met 20 minutes later, Renthe-Fink declared that German troops were at that moment moving in to occupy Denmark to protect the country from Franco-British attack. The German ambassador demanded that Danish resistance cease immediately and contact be made between Danish authorities and the German armed forces. If the demands were not met, the Luftwaffe would bomb the capital, Copenhagen. [6]
As the German demands were communicated, the first German advances had already been made, with forces landing by ferry in Gedser at 04:15 and moving north. German Fallschirmjäger units had made unopposed landings and taken two airfields at Aalborg, the Storstrøm Bridge as well as the fortress of Masnedø. [6]
At 04:20 local time, 1,000 German infantrymen landed in Copenhagen harbour from the minelayer Hansestadt Danzig, quickly capturing the Danish garrison at the Citadel without encountering resistance. From the harbour, the Germans moved towards Amalienborg Palace to capture the Danish royal family. By the time the invasion forces arrived at the king's residence, the King's Royal Guard had been alerted and other reinforcements were on their way to the palace. The first German attack on Amalienborg was repulsed, giving Christian X and his ministers time to confer with the Danish Army chief General Prior. As the discussions were ongoing, several formations of Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 bombers roared over the city dropping the OPROP! leaflets. Faced with the explicit threat of the Luftwaffe bombing the civilian population of Copenhagen, and only General Prior in favour of continuing to fight, King Christian X and the entire Danish government capitulated at 08:34 in exchange for retaining political independence in domestic matters. [6]
At 05:45, two squadrons of German Bf 110s attacked Værløse airfield on Zealand and wiped out the Danish Army Air Service by strafing. Despite Danish anti-aircraft fire, the German fighters destroyed 11 Danish aircraft and seriously damaged another 14. [6]
The invasion of Denmark lasted less than six hours and was the shortest military campaign conducted by the Germans during the war. The rapid Danish capitulation resulted in the uniquely lenient Occupation of Denmark, particularly until the summer of 1943, and in postponing the arrest and deportation of Danish Jews until nearly all of them were warned and on their way to refuge in Sweden. [7] In the end, 477 Danish Jews were deported, and 70 of them lost their lives, out of a pre-war total of Jews and half-Jews at a little over 8,000. [8]
Both Denmark and Germany are members of the European Union and NATO. Denmark has an embassy in Berlin, as well as a consulate general in Flensburg [9] and one in Hamburg. [10] Germany maintains an embassy in Copenhagen as well as a network of honorary consulates around Denmark. The Bonn-Copenhagen declarations of 1955 establishes mutual recognition of the minorities on both side of the border, assures full civil rights and the right to establish schools teaching in the minority language. Additionally, the Danish Ministry of Education (Undervisningsministeret) cooperated with the Bundes state of Baden-Württemberg's ministry of education, Kultusministerium, to develop and carry out an exchange programme between gymnasium students in both countries. [11] The official name of the programme is "Deutsch-Dänisches grenzenübergreifendes Schüleraustauschprogramm für die Entwicklung und den Beibehalt, essentieller kultureller Verständigung und prägenden Erfahrungen". The first exchange was officially carried out in April 2016 in the city of Mosbach, Baden-Württemberg. The second official exchange took place in Odense, Denmark, in May, followed by a third, but not final, successful visit in August 2016. Even though the programme is officially over, plans have been made for a comeback before the end of 2016. [12]
In the context of the European migrant crisis, Denmark has been maintaining temporary border control on the Danish-German border since 4 January 2016, which has been repeatedly extended. [13] [14] As of April 2019, slightly more than 10 million people have been stopped, of which 7599 have been turned away. [15] As of October 2018, 801 weapons have been confiscated and 5479 charges of, among other things, human trafficking and drug smuggling, have been brought. [16] The police have been releasing weekly tallies Archived 2019-05-30 at the Wayback Machine of individuals checked, individuals denied entry and individuals charged with human trafficking.
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical Duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig. Its capital city is Kiel; other notable cities are Lübeck and Flensburg.
Southern Schleswig is the southern half of the former Duchy of Schleswig in Germany on the Jutland Peninsula. The geographical area today covers the large area between the Eider river in the south and the Flensburg Fjord in the north, where it borders Denmark. Northern Schleswig, congruent with the former South Jutland County, forms the southernmost part of Denmark. The area belonged to the Crown of Denmark until Prussia and Austria declared war on Denmark in 1864. Denmark wanted to give away the German-speaking Holsten and set the new border at the small river Ejderen. Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck concluded that this justified a war, and even proclaimed it a "holy war". He also turned to the Emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph I of Austria for help. A similar war in 1848 had gone poorly for the Prussians. With Prussia's modern weapons and the help from both the Austrians and General Moltke, the Danish army was destroyed or forced to make a disorderly retreat. The Prussian-Danish border was then moved from the Elbe up in Jutland to the Kongeåen creek.
The Duchy of Schleswig was a duchy in Southern Jutland covering the area between about 60 km north and 70 km (45 mi) south of the current 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. The region is also called Sleswick in English.
Flensburg is an independent town in the north of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg is the north of the region of Schleswig. After Kiel and Lübeck, it is the third-largest town in Schleswig-Holstein.
South Jutland County is a former county on the south-central portion of the Jutland Peninsula in southern Denmark.
Christian III reigned as King of Denmark from 1534 and King of Norway from 1537 until his death in 1559. During his reign, Christian formed close ties between the church and the crown. He established Lutheranism as the state religion within his realms as part of the Protestant Reformation, and was the first King of Denmark-Norway.
Christian I was a German noble and Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union. He was king of Denmark (1448–1481), Norway (1450–1481) and Sweden (1457–1464). From 1460 to 1481, he was also duke of Schleswig and count of Holstein. He was the first king of the House of Oldenburg.
The history of Schleswig-Holstein consists of the corpus of facts since the pre-history times until the modern establishing of the Schleswig-Holstein state.
The Danish ethnic minority in Southern Schleswig, Germany, has existed by this name since 1920, when the Schleswig Plebiscite split German-ruled Schleswig into two parts: Northern Schleswig with a Danish majority and a German minority was united with Denmark, while Southern Schleswig remained a part of Germany and had a German majority and Danish and Frisian minority populations. Their historic roots go back to the beginning of Danish settlement after the emigration of the Angles. One of the most common names they use to describe themselves is danske sydslesvigere.
The Second Schleswig War, also sometimes known as the Dano-Prussian War or Prusso-Danish War, was the second military conflict over the Schleswig-Holstein Question of the nineteenth century. The war began on 1 February 1864, when Prussian and Austrian forces crossed the border into the Danish fief Schleswig. Denmark fought troops of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Empire representing the German Confederation.
The Treaty of Ribe was a proclamation at Ribe made in 1460 by King Christian I of Denmark to a number of Holsatian nobles enabling himself to become Count of Holstein and gain control of the Duchy of Schleswig. The most famous line of the proclamation was that the Danish Duchy of Schleswig and the County of Holstein within the Holy Roman Empire, should now be, in the original Middle Low German language, Up Ewig Ungedeelt, or "Forever Undivided".
The history of rail transport in Denmark began in 1847 with the opening of a railway line between Copenhagen and Roskilde. The Kiel-Altona line in Holstein was completed three years earlier, but the region was later lost to the German Confederation in the Second War of Schleswig.
The Schleswig plebiscites were two plebiscites, organized according to section XII, articles 100 to 115 of the Treaty of Versailles of 28 June 1919, in order to determine the future border between Denmark and Germany through the former Duchy of Schleswig. The process was monitored by a commission with representatives from France, the United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden.
The Province of Schleswig-Holstein was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia.
Denmark–Russia relations are the relations between the countries of Denmark and Russia. The Kings of Denmark and the Russian Tsars interacted from the 15th century onwards – subsequently Denmark's control of access to and from the Baltic Sea had considerable significance for the trade and naval flexibility of the Russian Empire, while rivalries between Denmark and Sweden on the one hand and between Sweden and Russia on the other led to alliances and military support. Denmark and the USSR established diplomatic relations on 18 June 1924.
The relations between Denmark and Sweden span a long history of interaction. The inhabitants of each speak related North Germanic languages, which have a degree of mutual intelligibility. Both countries formed part of the Kalmar Union between 1397 and 1523, but there exists an inherited cultural competition between Sweden and Denmark. From 1448 to 1790 the two kingdoms went to war against each other at nearly every opportunity; in more than one case a new king tried to prove his worth by waging war on the other country for little or no political reason. Eleven Dano-Swedish wars took place between 1521 and 1814.
Jutland is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany.
Approximately 15,000 people in Denmark belong to an autochthonous ethnic German minority traditionally referred to as hjemmetyskere meaning "domestic Germans" in Danish, and as Nordschleswiger in German. This minority of Germans hold Danish citizenship and self-identify as ethnic Germans. They generally speak German or Low German alongside South Jutlandic dialect of Danish as their home languages. Furthermore, there are also several thousand German immigrants residing in Denmark with no historical connection to this group.
Padborg station is a railway station in the Danish town of Padborg in the southern part of Jutland. The station is located on the Fredericia–Flensburg railway line and is the last Danish train station before the border with Germany which lies immediately south of the station. To the west, Tønder in Denmark on the route to Niebull is a further border station.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany is a Lutheran member church of the Protestant Church in Germany.
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