| Danish Minority In Southern Schleswig |
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Denmark has continued to support the minority financially. Danish schools and clubs have been run in the region, until 1926 in Flensburg only , and thereafter throughout the region. Membership in the Danish minority has always been fluid, as there are no objective criteria to distinguish a German Schleswigian from a Danish. While over 12,000 of the population of South Schleswig voted for Denmark in the 1920-plebiscite, only about 3,000 were organised in the Danish cultural association by the end of the Nazi dictatorship. After World War II , many people chose to join the Danish minority in hopes of joining the much more prosperous Denmark. This was partly caused by a wish to live in a free and democratic country and a rediscovery of Danish family roots, as most Schleswigians are of Danish extent. Social hardships in the aftermath of the war probably played another distinctive role, as a high proportion of the 'new Danes' had a lower class background, while only very few of the old elite changed nationality. At the end of 1946 , the minority had thus reached a membership of 62,000. However, the Danish government did not allow South Schleswig to join the kingdom, and in 1953 the so-called ''Programm Nord'' (''Northern Programme'') was set up by the Schleswig-Holstein 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 these days numbers around 50,000. SEE ALSO |