The Settlement of the Status of National Minorities in the Danish-German Borderlands in Light of The Post-War Reconciliation Between Denmark and Germany (1945—1955)

Abstract

The article deals with the legal settlement of the status and rights of the Danish and German minorities in South Schleswig and South Jutland and it significance for the postwar reconciliation between Denmark and Germany. Whereas in the case of France and Germany the integration of the coal and steel industries within the framework of the European Coal and Steel Community provided a practical basis and simultaneously became the symbol of their postwar reconciliation, in the case of Denmark and Germany such basis and symbol was embodied by the Danish-German model of national minorities’ protection and political emancipation which was reflected in the Copenhagen-Bonn Declarations of 1955. Since the question of Germany's accession to NATO became inseparable from the problem of the Danish and German national minorities, the German government headed by K. Adenauer considered it possible to make significant concessions to the Danish side and to provide the Danish minority with a possibility to achieve a broad political representation both at the local and the federal level.