Schleswig Holstein Question

german, danish, zone and treaty

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burg (zone 2) and voting rights to all those born in the voting district. The Peace Treaty, presented May 7, further provided for a plebiscite in a third zone, but this was later dropped.

On the treaty coming into force (Jan. 10, 1920) an international commission took charge of the plebiscite district. Zone I gave 75,431 votes for Denmark, 25,329 for Germany (Feb. 1o) ; zone 2, 48,148 votes for Germany, 13,029 for Denmark (March The frontier established by the treaty of July 5, 1926 gave effect to this verdict, and restored to Denmark that part of Schleswig which lies north of the Flensburg fjord, and of a line drawn ap proximately west from it. On July 7 the executive power in Zone I was handed over to Denmark.

Subsequent elections have shown the line to be fairly drawn. The Danish vote polled in Germany in 1924 was 7,700—insuffi cient to return a Danish representative. The German votes for the Rigsdag in 1921 and 1924 totalled 7,500, returning one mem ber under the system of proportional representation. The Treaty of Versailles imposed no special obligations upon Denmark with regard to her German minority, since the Danish constitution offered adequate safeguards; on the same grounds the Danish Government declined the proposal for a special treaty with Ger many for reciprocal protection of the minorities, as this might lead to interference by the Government of one country in the affairs of another. The Danish Government, however, offered

the German minority every facility to develop its own culture, the school system of North Schleswig being reorganized with this view; parents decide whether they will have their children edu cated in German or Danish at primary schools, and German pri vate schools receive State grants.

See Sach, Geschichte der Stadt Schleswig (Schleswig, 1875) ; and Jensen, Schleswig and Umgebung (Schleswig, 1905) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The literature on the subject is vast. From the German point of view the most comprehensive treatment is in C. Jan sen and K. Samwer, Schleswig-Holsteins Befreiung (Wiesbaden, 1897) ; see also H. C. L. von Sybel, Foundation of the German Empire (Eng. trans., New York, 189o-91) ; Bismarck's Reflections and Reminiscences, and L. Hahn, Bismarck (5 vols., 1878-91). The Danish point of view is ably and moderately presented in La Question du Slesvig, a collection of essays by various writers edited by F. de Jessen (Copenhagen, 1906), with maps and documents. (W. A. P.; X.)

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