1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
PoliticsGermany

Germany, Denmark celebrate border centennial

June 14, 2021

During a special ceremony, dignitaries from Germany and Denmark said the countries' common border has withstood many historical tests.

German President Steinmeier walks with Danish flags behind him
The current German-Danish border was set 101 years agoImage: Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa/picture alliance

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Danish Queen Margarette II led celebrations Sunday marking 101 years since the two nations delineated their 70-kilometer (44 mile)-long border.

In June 1920, Danish King Christian X, Margerette's grandfather, ratified a law that returned the South Jutland region to Denmark.

North Schleswig was officially made part of Denmark and South Schleswig part of Germany as a result of the Schleswig plebiscites, a vote organized after World War One to determine the Danish-German border. 

At the time, residents of North Schleswig voted for the region to be made part of Denmark, and residents of South Schleswig voted for Germany, which retained the city of Flensburg and the North Sea island of Sylt. 

On Sunday, Germany's Schleswig-Holstein state premier Daniel Günther said at the ceremony that the border agreement represented an "unparalleled" instance of friendship.

"Where has it happened that a border was drawn peacefully by referendum?" Günther said at the centennial celebration, which had been postponed for a year by coronavirus. 

"In my eyes, it is of special historical merit that the border dispute of 1920 was not resolved by warlike confrontation, but by a referendum," Günther told Germany's DPA news agency. 

Germany was 'not always a good neighbor' to Denmark

During a speech at the ceremony, German President Steinmeier, decried Nazi Germany's 1940-1945 occupation of neutral Denmark, saying that the "peace promise" was violated 20 years after the border agreement when "we as Germans attacked our Danish neighbors.''

Steinmeier added that renewal of post-war border ties "was nothing less than a small miracle."

"Germany was truly not always a good neighbor to Denmark," said Steinmeier.

Together with Denmark's Queen Margarette, 81, Steinmeier planted ceremonial trees at the Dybbol fortress site near the Danish town of Sonderborg. 

Steinmeier and Queen Margarethe planting trees, a "German" oak and a "Danish" beechImage: Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa/picture alliance

Germany controlled the South Jutland region for 56 years after Denmark's 1864 defeat by Prussian troops at the Battle of Dybbol during the Second Schleswig War, sometimes described as Europe's forgotten war. The region was then called North Schleswig in Germany.

Battle casualties on the day included some 700 Danes and 263 German soldiers killed — losses still commemorated on April 18 each year by Denmark. 

Visiting the Dybbol fortress site with Steinmeier Sunday, Queen Margarethe said the historical site was now "a link between neighbors and friends."

April 18,1864: German Prussian troops stormed Dybbol fort, sketched by Wilhelm CamphausenImage: akg-images/picture alliance

Earlier on Sunday, Margarette as well as Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik and Prince Christian rode a horse-drawn carriage across the former German border at Frederikshoj, near Kolding.

Now deep within Denmark, it lies 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of the current German border city of Flensburg.

Danish royalty crossing the old border at Frederikshoej on SundayImage: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix/picture alliance

ipj/wmr (dpa, AP, AFP)

Skip next section Explore more
Skip next section DW's Top Story

DW's Top Story

Skip next section More stories from DW