German reacts to 'Why did Denmark gain land after WW1 despite being neutral?'

Why do we not learn this in school in Germany???!

[polishsmolish]

Imagine pulling up to a peace conference and the victors bully you to take more land than you initially wanted.
Denmark: "Hi I would like 1, 000 km sq please."
Britian: "5000, take it or leave it."

[ane-louisestampe]

It's a democratic border! There's too few of them around the world.

[anniekongsvold]

The background is that it was decided by the victorious nations of WW I to allow a referendum in the ultimo Northern part of Germany (in the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein).These duchies were Danish until the war In 1864 between Germany and Denmark, and with bigger manpower and better weapons Germany of course came out victorious. Denmark lost 1/3 of its area as Schleswig-Holstein as a result of the war became German. The referendum mentioned above was then taken after WW I, and as a result and from 1920 the whole of Holstein and the Southern part of Schleswig voted for remaining in Germany. The Northern part of Schleswig voted itself back to Denmark. So today there are quite a lot of German and Danish schools and activities both North and South of today's border.

[vaxrvaxr]

It shouldn't surprise you in the least that two established empires would do their best to cripple an up and coming empire after defeating it in a war. Has nothing to do with "punishment" or "doing it again".

[KeesBoons]

It's all about making videos with hindsight. I new about the Schleswig plebiscites, but I didn't now about any push from France or the Brits, nor any interference from the US. I'll have to dive further into that, as I have a hard time believing the US is the reasonable one in the story.

[marscaleb]

So about the whole "Why did they think Germany would go to war again?" thing.
If you really examine pre-ww1 history, it really isn't surprising at all. People had wars all the time. Even in this video they mention a war that Germany and Austria waged on Denmark. They really weren't that big of a deal.
But come the 20th century, well, wars WERE a pretty big deal. War changed, and it changed a lot.
Leaders who were coming from the 19th century, who were used to wars being waged over small matters, but seeing how unimaginably horrible wars had become, would be very interested in blocking off Germany.

Were they expecting Germany to retaliate? Well yes and no.

Yes because that's just what happened. There would be a war, a country lost some land, and a generation later they have another war to try to get it back. (How many times did Alsace–Lorraine change hands?) So they basically figured that would happen again at some point just because that's what happens. It would be pretty stupid to just think they wouldn't have another war.
But no, they didn't expect retaliation along the lines of what happened. No, they didn't expect Germany to grow as powerful as they did as quickly as they did. Arguably they didn't expect another world war that would rival (let alone surpass) the scale of the last one.

So they saw SOME of it coming, and it really wasn't unreasonable to want some changes to help mitigate against the possibility.

[mortenhyvejle]

I'm from Als, right next to the German border so I grew up with only German TV until I was 9, it took us no time to take the ferry to Langballiau und Flensburg, so I have a close relationship with Germany.

When you are from Als you speak Alsisk, it's danish with German. German's don't understand me, Dane's don't understand me, my own kid's don't understand me when I speak Alsisk 😂.

For example we use the word "moin". It means good morning, goodnight, hello and goodbye.

Denmark was according to Hitler "a special case". We were the only country that saved close to 100% of the Jew's, and according to Britain, danish spies delivered so much information compared to other countries that it was second to none...yes we still have viking blood 😂 (viking's were called Dane's).

The dillema is...well was, when I grew up in southern Jutland, 30 year's after the war, we grew up with absolutely nothing but love for Germany... longer up north in Denmark people at that point in time still "hated Germany"....my grandfather was German Karl Heinz, so while people in the north still held a grudge, us in the south near the border thought very different about germany. This was in the 80's, a long time ago.

I'm not sure if I can explain what I mean, I'm better at German than English...but the video just made me think back...sure I'm viking..and since the Dane's owned Germany, Norway, Sweden, France and England, I feel that in the end we are the same...and I'm pretty sure that was the reason why Hitler let us say "we won't follow your rules" and called Denmark a "special case".

But hey... Greenland is a part of Denmark... LOL that's a story even more outrageous 😂... Greenland wants to stay under danish protection though...but how we got ownership is absolutely ridiculous.

[finncarlbomholtsrensen]

To my knowledge, even after WW2 some had ideas of a further gain of former Danish land to the south (We came close to also gaining Flensburg as a Danish Town, during the first vote!).
Hedeby was a major Danish town in the Viking ages and the Fortress Wall, crossing Jutland, "Dannevirke" the southern border of Denmark. But luckily, sane politicians rejected the idea.