‘We Remain What We Are’. North Schleswig German Identities in Children’s Education after 1945

Tobias Wung-Sung

No 8, Working Papers from University of Southern Denmark, Centre for Border Region Studies

Abstract: Like many other ethnic Germans in Europe, the German minority in Denmark supported the Nazi regime in Germany and its policy of territorial expansion. But unlike most German minorities of Europe, the Germans in Denmark avoided post-war forced deportation or assimilation. Able to stay in their native region, the minority reconstructed their civic life over the next 25 years. The minority regarded education vital for securing the group’s long-term survival. The success of re-building schools, however, did not leave the minority unchanged. Over time, the identities that were constructed and communicated in the new schools changed as much as society surrounding them. The article brings forward this identity transformation through an analysis of the education system reconstruction process, 1945-1970. The article shows that children and youths of the German-minded minority in post-war North Schleswig attended schools that gradually replaced hostility and national separatism with transnational inclusion and an international outlook.

Keywords: minorities; children; education; identity; history; Schleswig; Denmark; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J15 N44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-his
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