Minority problems in the German-Danish border region

[ingemann]

http://www.fuen.org/media/146.pdf

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This explain why SSW support SPD, it's not so much ideologic agrement with SPD and the Greens, but more the open hostility from CDU.
It should be said that this article put Denmark in better light than it deserve. Denmark treat the German schools in Denmark as every other Free School (private school), which mean that they receive slightly less than public school from the state (85%, which was why the Landtag in Schleswig-Holstein choose that number.), but may raise up to 33% of what the state give among the parents (which they can have a budget of around 113% of a public school per student). Of course the German schools have shown little wish to change that, as it would mean that they would get a smaller budget. The difference in the school system of the two minorities are to large degree based on the German minority in Denmark has traditional been the upper middleclass and upper class, while the Danish minority has traditional been urban workers, rural workers and small farmers, as such they was less able to afford to pay extra for education, as such the Germans was very generous in the Copenhagen-Bonn declaration, which gave the Danish schools this support. Of course it should be said that it was also a attempt to normalise the relationship with the Danish state after the occupation, where Denmark didn't annex South Schleswig after the War, as they had been offered by the allies (and which around 33% of the local population had supported) or deported the German population in Denmark.

[minionofmidas]

Few people south of the Eider are even aware that such a thing as a German minority in Denmark exists.
The SSW's successes in the late 40s/early 50s were due to Schleswig-Holstein being utterly swamped with eastern refugees, almost enabling it (for a fleeting moment) to become the party of the authochthonous population of Schleswig regardless of language. IIRC they once actually demanded restricting the franchise in state elections to people born in the state.
The state CDU, in its founder generation, was completely dominated by refugees. And yeah, hence the traditional bad blood between the two parties, making an unexpected comeback once or twice per generation. (And, really, the SSW's survival. That and the excemption from the threshold, obviously. The last CDU hissy fit was over the introduction of ticket splitting in the state, which enabled people in Holstein to vote for the SSW - previous to that they were only on the ballot where they had a direct candidate.)

[politicus]

Just a short explanation to the threshold question seen from a Danish POV.
After the war the Danish government wanted Southern Schleswig to become an autonomous state in a coming German federation. The British refused that and basically told the Danes they could either incorporate part of (or all of) Southen Schleswig, but should not interfere in how the British organized things in their occupation zone. So the larger and more economically viable S-H state was estblished, but since there are no original Danish population in Holstein, the Danes would become a small minority in this unit. It was therefore later agreed in the Copenhagen-Bonn agreements in 1955 beteween BRD and DK, that the Danish minority was exempt from the threhold, this was considered fair by both sides, since the minority could easily have passed the threshold in the Schleswig part of the state.

Its a shame they didnt formalize this argument, so the SSW/SSV would need to pass the 5% threshold in Schleswig. This would have made the exemption far harder to criticize.

(Northern Schleswig was part of DK since 1920)

[minionofmidas]

Although really, that perspective is "Danish" only in the sense that Danes know more detail about the issue because Danes have more reason to care. Denmark being such a small country that the Danish minority in Germany makes up a much larger proportion of the Danish-speaking world than it does of the population of Germany.
Yours is not a slanted presentation or anything of the kind, it's just that virtually nobody in German (outside Schleswig) knows much about it or even knows how much there is to know.

I ought to do a study of the national (where SSW don't run) preferences of SSW voters some time... I guess they split reasonably evenly between the camps, that's certainly what's implied by looking at constituencies or districts, but maybe a look at a municipal level would be more telling and give a somewhat different picture.

[minionofmidas]

http://ssw-landtag.de/de/presse/pressemitteilungen/show/article/die-kuerzung-bei-den-daenischen-schulen-ist-und-bleibt-diskriminierend.html

I like this bitten smilie: