Small pinprick policy (Schleswig-Holstein)
“Politics of small pinpricks” is a collective term for political measures with a discriminatory effect on the official side in Schleswig-Holstein against the Danish minority in Schleswig in the immediate post-war years after the Second World War .
On the one hand, this policy was the reaction to the latent discrimination against the German minority north of the border, which had persisted since the end of the war , for example the open question of the expropriation and destruction of the private property of the German ethnic group immediately after the war and the rehabilitation of those who were often blindly arrested and partially designated German North Schleswig-Holstein as well as the still applicable ban on secondary schools and the lack of examination rights for German schools.
On the other hand, the measures were related to the demands made by many members of the Danish movement in Schleswig for a border inspection and expulsion of the refugees, which the official Danish side, however, rejected. Even after the Kiel declaration by the Schleswig-Holstein state government, no corresponding step was taken by the official authorities in Copenhagen.
The situation with regard to the rights and resources for school and cultural work was therefore similar north and south of the border: both sides did not recognize the minority's school-leaving qualifications - one side after 1945, the other as a return coach in the following years - and on both sides there was no commitment to publicly promote the education of the minority - funds were modest south of the border and zero north of the border.
In 1953, the threshold clause for the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament was increased from 5% to 7.5% in order to be able to exclude the SSW from political participation at the state level. However, this clause was declared unconstitutional by the Federal Constitutional Court . However, the SSW failed with 3.5% of the votes in the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein in 1954 because of the 5% clause.
The situation only changed after 1955 in the course of the Bonn-Copenhagen Declarations , which calmed the situation in the German-Danish border region and guaranteed comprehensive rights for the German minority in North Schleswig as well as for the Danish minority in South Schleswig.
The rights of the respective minority with regard to cultural freedom of movement were stipulated identically, in particular the German ethnic group was given back exam rights and the opportunity to run their own schools. However, the facilitation of political representation was handled differently, as the threshold clause north of the border was only introduced 5 years after the declarations, but was then nevertheless not subjected to an exception in analogy to the exception for the Danish minority south of the border. The unanswered demand for amnesty and return of the expropriated property of the German minority, which the Danish side viewed as interference in domestic Danish affairs and rejected, was also seen as a disappointment.
Instead of opposing one another between Germans and Danes, people talk about togetherness today, and discriminatory politics are largely a thing of the past. The Schleswig border region is therefore seen today by many as a model region for other European border regions.
Individual evidence
- ↑ BVerfGE 1, 208