Denmark Irredenta

I was flattered on Wednesday when a Swedish blogger named Knute, who keeps a blog called “Every Kinda People”, linked approvingly to my recent post about the Danish Model.

Som jag skrev i en tidigare post, en skillnad mellan Sverige och Danmark är besättelsen, att tyskarnas ockupation under andra världskriget har gjort att danskarna inte vill finna sig i översitteri och trakasseri.

Men det finns fler förklaringar till att det inte längre är den svenska utan den danska modellen som världen talar om:

“Danskarna är ljusår före resten av Västern i sina mellanhavanden med islam, multikulturalism, massimmigration från tredje världen, och alla de andra frågorna som orsakar PC-plåga och täpper till artärerna på politiken.”

Danish reader Kepiblanc kindly volunteered a translation of the first two paragraphs:

As I wrote in an earlier post, one of the differences between Sweden and Denmark is that the German occupation during the Second World War had the effect that Danes will not tolerate being pushed around and harassed.

But there is more than one explanation as to why it’s no longer the Swedish, but the Danish model the world is talking about:

The third paragraph of his post is a translation into Swedish of part of my essay. It’s the first occasion, to my knowledge, that anything at Gates of Vienna has been translated into a foreign language. A momentous occasion!


When I referred to Knute as a Swede, I was not being completely accurate. Knute lives in Sydsverige, or “South Sweden”, also known as Skåne or Scania. Until 1658 Skåne was a part of Denmark, but after Karl X Gustav of Sweden defeated the Danes in the First Northern War, Skåne became a Swedish possession.
- - - - - - - - - -
The Treaty of Roskilde in 1658 and the Treaties of Oliwa and København in 1660 codified the new arrangement. Skåne remained Swedish, and throughout the latter half of the 17th century the Swedish crown relentlessly “swedified” the province, attempting to erase any cultural affinity with Denmark.


But Skåne was never really fully integrated. To this day the people of Skåne are regarded by the “real” Swedes of the northern counties as not quite Swedish. They are thought to possess at least some of the notoriously lax and distasteful Danish traits.

The history of Skåne is somewhat glossed over by the Swedish tourist bureau, Sverigeturism:

The peace treaty of Roskilde 1658, when Skåne came under the sovereignty of Sweden’s king Karl X Gustav , signalled a period of harsh “swedeification” of the province, which was to last beyond 1700. Although the nobility was quick in pledging allegiance to the King of Sweden (in exchange for being allowed to keep their estates) most of the population of Skåne felt more Danish than Swedish. The Danes tried to recapture Skåne but failed when King Karl XI won the battle in 1676 (Lund) over the Danes.

Some Danish websites are more vehement about the history of the region. According to The Copenhagen Post:

No More Lies: The Blood Truth About Skane, Halland and Blekinge

For the past 300 years Swedish and Danish historians have overlooked the tragic history of south-western Sweden.

“The Swedish historians have lied, and the Danish ones have repressed their own history,” says amateur Swedish historian, Uno Röndahl, about the history of Skåne, Halland and Blekinge — the three principalities of Sweden that lie directly across the Øresund Strait from Copenhagen. “People don’t know that these lands were once part of Denmark, and that the people who lived here were Danes. Nor do they know that the Swedish kings practiced genocide on the population of these regions in order to stamp out any signs of Denmark and force Skåne, Halland and Blekinge into being Swedish.” Now with the bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden through this region, Röndahl says it is time for the truth to be told.

For over a thousand years, Skåne, Halland and Blekinge belonged to Denmark. In fact in the days of King Christian IV the regions were considered to be the mainland part of the country, a distinction that has since shifted over to the Jutland Peninsula. Looking at a map of Scandinavia, the importance of the regions in relationship to the rest of Denmark might not seem at first logical. Situated at the very tip of the Swedish Peninsula, Skåne, Halland and Blekinge seem naturally part of the Swedish nation; however, if one looks closer it is easy to see that, with the exception of Zealand itself, these lands are closer to Copenhagen than the Jutland penisula. In fact, one of the principle reasons for moving the Danish capital from the city of Roskilde east to Copenhagen was to situate the government in a more central position in relation to the rest of the lands of Denmark, and yet Danish history books make only cursory mention of the regions importance.

“I believe the reason Denmark represses the history of the region is due to the trauma it suffered,” Röndahl says. “Much in the way a raped woman tries to forget the agony she has gone through, Denmark turned its back on its former lands.”

It’s strange to picture Sweden — known nowadays as the quintessentially pacifist nation — as a militaristic and aggressive European power. But it is only by some quirk of fate that Germany aspired to form the great Nordic Reich, and not Sweden. An objective observer in 1700 would certainly have placed his bets on the Swedes over the Germans as the future hegemons of northern Europe.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
The most prominent city in Skåne is Malmö, which grew up in the Middle Ages around the place where the Archbishop of Lund berthed his ship. It has become notorious in recent years for having the most intractably unassimilated population of Muslim immigrants of any European city north of Paris.

So how do the Danes feel about “Denmark Irredenta”? Given the current situation in the urban parts of Skåne — the immigrants, the violence, and the multiculturalism — would they want it back?

They might just as readily say, “No thanks, Sweden. It’s OK — you can keep it.”