Up forever untagged

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Memorial stone in Elmshorn (1898)
Memorial stone in Rahlstedt with upturned Schleswig lions (after 1928)
After Lauenburg and Holstein had been evacuated in 1864, Danish guards stood at the bridge to the Eider, marking the separation of Holstein and Schleswig, with Rendsburg adorned with Schleswig-Holstein flags in the background

Up eternally ungedelt (High German: forever undivided ) is a passage from the Treaty of Ripen of 1460, in which the rule in the Duchy of Schleswig and the Duchy of Holstein was regulated. After August Wilhelm Neuber had used this saying in a poem in 1841, it became the catchphrase of the state law demanded by the Holstein assembly of estates in 1844 : "The duchies of Schleswig and Holstein are firmly linked states". Up eternally unedited is the motto of Schleswig-Holstein today .

history

While Schleswig was characterized by Danish settlement in the Middle Ages and by Frisian settlement in the Schleswig Utland region , Holstein was Saxon and in Wagria also Slavic. Despite the cultural and linguistic differences, the first connections between the two territories emerged in the Middle Ages. These had dynastic, but also socio-economic reasons. In 1232, Duke Abel from southern Jutland and Schleswig married the daughter of Count Adolf IV of Schauenburg and Holstein , Mechthild von Holstein , and thus created the first dynastic-political link between the two territories. In addition, there was an increasing influence of the Holstein nobility in Schleswig in the following decades. The relatively early settled agricultural areas of Schleswig and Jutland had a number of desolate farms and villages around 1300, while Holstein was colonized later. In this agricultural crisis , Holstein nobles acquired goods and pawns in Schleswig on favorable terms, creating a group of people who were wealthy in Schleswig as in Holstein and interested in joint management.

Schleswig and Holstein were ruled together for the first time on August 15, 1386. Queen Margaret I left Count Gerhard VI. (Holstein-Rendsburg) the Duchy of Schleswig as a fief . This was the first time that the Duchy of Schleswig and the Duchy of Holstein were ruled under common rule, although Holstein remained as a German imperial fief and Schleswig as a royal Danish fief. In 1460, King Christian I of Denmark from the House of Oldenburg became the common ruler of Schleswig and Holstein. In return, he had to approve the demand: "unde dat se bliven ewich tosamende ungedelt" (and that they remain undivided forever), so that the two duchies should not be separated again. He affirmed this (Low German) promise with the Treaty of Ripen , two copies of which are now kept in the Schleswig-Holstein State Archives and the Danish Reich Archives.

Under state law experts, it is still controversial whether it is in this Tangible acts and in particular in this promise to an agreement with the Danish royal family or the Danish King Christian I. In the latter case, the contract would have become irrelevant with the death of Christian I. The two duchies were no longer separated from each other for the next 400 years; however, there soon came to be inheritance divisions between the lines of the Princely House of Oldenburg, which formally ruled the two duchies together, but each had rights in different parts of the area, which were spread over the two territories like a patchwork quilt. It was not until 1713 that the Duchy of Schleswig and in 1773 the Duchy of Holstein were reunited into royal Danish hands and became part of the entire Danish state .

Schleswig and Holstein around 1650. The map shows the duchies split into several parts (royal, Gottorf etc.).

When August Wilhelm Neuber created his poem Up for ever in 1841, the Holstein assembly of estates of 1844 also adopted the motto as a fundamental demand. The Treaty of Ripen, which originally documented the affiliation to Denmark, was now reinterpreted as the unity of the two duchies with the claim to the independence of a united Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark. While the hymn Schleswig-Holstein was presented to the public at the Schleswig-Holstein Singer Festival in 1844, at the 1845 Singer Festival in Eckernförde the catchphrase "Up forever ungedeelt" emerged and became the motto of the German Schleswig-Holsteiners on the Schleswig-Holstein question .

On March 18, 1848, German-minded delegates of the estates of the two duchies met in Rendsburg and demanded a common constitution for Schleswig and Holstein, Schleswig's admission to the German Confederation, people's arming and, last but not least, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. At the same time, at the casino meeting in Copenhagen, the Danish national liberals called for a democratic constitution for Denmark and the inclusion of Schleswig in the Danish state. One day later, on March 21, 1848, a first bourgeois government (the so-called March Ministry ) was formed in Copenhagen , which was occupied by both conservative state supporters and Danish national liberals , which ended absolutism in Denmark. On the night of 23/24 On March 1st, a German-minded Provisional Government was formed in the duchies , which was also characterized by a dualism of conservative and national liberal forces. In the following Schleswig-Holstein uprising and in the German-Danish War (1864), “Up forever ungedled” remained the slogan of the German Schleswig-Holsteiners. The Schleswig-Holsteiners, who were German-oriented, strove for membership of Schleswig in the German Confederation and hoped for an independent duchy, in which this was reluctantly supported by Austria after 1864. However, the warring great power Prussia had other plans. Bismarck wanted to incorporate the duchies of Prussia. He declared on New Year's Eve 1863: “The Up eternally unedited must one day become Prussians. That is the goal I steer towards (...) "

After their victory in 1864, Austria and Prussia were given sovereignty over the three Elbe duchies as condominiums . After the war against Austria , Schleswig-Holstein was annexed by Prussia as the province of Schleswig-Holstein . A referendum on the nationality of Schleswig, which was laid down in the Prague Peace Treaty of 1866, was initially not carried out.

For the last time so far, the motto gained political significance in 1920 at the referendum in Schleswig, as envisaged in the Versailles Peace Treaty . The predominantly Danish-minded part of Schleswig, North Schleswig , was separated from Schleswig-Holstein and came to Denmark.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Riis: Up eternally ungeled. A catchphrase and its background , p. 158 .
  2. ↑ Virtual Museum Online Political Changes in Copenhagen in March 1848 , Retrieved February 29, 2016
  3. ↑ Thomas Riis: Up eternally ungeled. A catchphrase and its background. In: Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann , Jürgen Elvert , Birgit Aschmann , Jens Hohensee (eds.): History pictures. Festschrift for Michael Salewski on the occasion of his 65th birthday (=  historical messages. Supplement 47). Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-515-08252-2 , p. 167.