A Short History of Schleswig-Holstein

Christian Friedrich Bothmann and his family left Germany in 1864. The reason for their journey to the United States, as it has been told to us, was the "Schleswig-Holstein Question." The tensions between Germany and Denmark over the two areas known as Schleswig-Holstein had been around for a very long time, but began to get worse in the 1840s when the dominant political posture was one of national liberalism. The growing political awareness of the people nurtured and sustained this new political trend. Its growth is due mainly to the growth of the press, the spread of the railroad, and the introduction of the telegraph. These factors brought Germany closer together and made the country a much smaller place. The reduced cost of printing encouraged the growth of local newspapers as well as periodicals.1 These local papers were crucial to the new interest in affairs of the state. They helped inform the public opinion that is the vital element to political movement. The Schleswig-Holstein Question was the issue of the 1840s that most nurtured the new German national liberalism.2

Schleswig and Holstein were both small duchies in the Baltic region of Germany (see map). They were both sparsely populated and relatively inaccessible. Both had been ruled by Denmark since 1640. Holstein was wholly German-speaking and was also a member of the German Confederation. (The German Confederation of 1815 was a revision of the Holy Roman Empire with about the same territorial extent. The Austrian Netherlands, however, was now a part of the United Netherlands.) Schleswig was half Danish-speaking and half German-speaking, and it was not a member of the German Confederation.3

At the beginning of the Nineteenth Century there was the possibility that the Danish royal house would become extinct because the king had neither heirs nor living relatives. The Germans in Schleswig-Holstein pronounced that when the last of the Danish royals died, the duchies would then revert in their entirety to a cadet branch of the royal line, the Augustenburgs, severing all ties to Denmark. The German Frederick, Duke of Augustenburg, would become the new royal leader of the duchies. The Danes dissented from the Germans' view. They maintained that Schleswig should at least stay under Danish control because of its Danish origins and associations.4

Then, in 1839, Christian VIII became the King of Denmark and Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. He tried to persuade Duke Frederick to abandon his claim to the duchies. His attempt to persuade Duke Frederick failed, so he began to think about the Danish laws of succession. They allowed for power to be passed down through a woman.5 The Danish estates petitioned King Christian to use the laws to pass power through a woman in 1844, the duchies believing that King Christian was an Eider-Dane sympathizer. (Eider-Danism was a movement in Denmark for the union of Schleswig with Denmark.) The Germans were worried about this trend in Danish thought because Schleswig-Holstein was considered a defensive wall of the German Empire and should be protected from Danish rule.6

In July of 1846 King Christian VIII declared that the female succession law applied to Schleswig as well as parts of Holstein. The people of the Duchies were outraged and protested the king's announcement. Some Germans left local estates and even resigned from prominent offices. King Christian's open letter inspired a new wave of German Nationalism, causing all of Germany to denounce the king's letter.7 The end of the 1840s saw Schleswig as a "battleground of rival national movements. German nationalists claimed that Schleswig was unquestionably German land that was intimately associated with German Holstein for centuries. It was felt that Schleswig ought to be a member of the Confederation.8 Danish nationalists, on the other hand, claimed that Schleswig was Danish land and that it "must become an integral part of a Danish national state. At the end of March, 1848, there was a revolution in Copenhagen with the Eider-Danes. The Eider-Danes were now in prominent positions. In response, Germany set up a provisional government in Kiel to defend the duchies. It then appealed to the Federal Diet, the German legislative body, for assistance against the Danes. The Federal Diet recognized the Kiel government and asked King Frederick William of Prussia to come to the defense of Schleswig-Holstein. In April Prussian and Federal troops drove the Danes out of South Jutland. Austria, however, refused to aid Schleswig-Holstein, and Prussia and the Central and Southern German states gave very little help.9 Meanwhile, the northern German coastline was blockaded by Denmark, an action which affected Prussian trade. Also, the Great Powers were not pleased by Prussian policy towards Schleswig-Holstein. So, at the end of May, General Wrangel, commander of the Prussian forces, pulled the troops out of the South Jutland. The Frankfurt Parliament protested this response to the pressure from the Great Powers and urged Prussia to pursue the war. However, General Wrangel was ordered to negotiate an armistice with Denmark in July. The armistice was signed in Malmo, Sweden, on 26 August, forcing Prussia to evacuate the duchies. Prussia, though, was given certain provisions under which it could negotiate the treaty. These Provisions were given to it by the central government. Prussia ignored those provisions, thus contracting out of a war that was approved by the Frankfurt Parliament. The Volparlament, or Pre-Parliament, a body which was not elected, rejected the Malmo armistice by a narrow margin after much debate.10

In 1849 war between Denmark and Germany broke out again. Russia was pressuring Prussia into making peace with Denmark in July of 1850. The treaty had terms favorable to Denmark. It gave the Danish king authorization to request the Confederation's assistance in restoring order to Holstein, the German insurgents last refuge.11

The status quo was restored in Schleswig-Holstein after the Revolution. According the Olmutz agreement, Austria was allowed to enter Holstein and dissolve the rebel government and hand the duchy back to Denmark. The next year, in December of 1851, Denmark promised to allow Schleswig-Holstein to have local constitutions. Schleswig would be incorporated into Denmark, and Germans and Danes would be granted equal rights in the duchies. The Federal Diet approved of Denmark's policy and withdrew the remaining forces from Holstein.12

The Danes created a new constitution in 1855, an action which caused problems with the duchies. They were not given equal representation in the Rigsraad, the council of state. The Germans did not like this new problem and maintained that Schleswig-Holstein was equal in all respects to Denmark. The duchies began to look to Germany for support and once again became the focus for German nationalism. The negotiations over the constitution became deadlocked in 1859. Then, in 1863, the king of Denmark was being pressured by the Eider-Danes, and the lower house of Danish parliament demanded Schleswig's union with Denmark.13 Denmark began to take steps toward the dissolution of ties between Denmark and Holstein by offering Holstein a new constitution which excluded it from the Rigsraad.

The king then opened Danish parliament in April by maintaining that Danish law was binding on Schleswig. Austria, Prussia, and the Federal Diet protested, but Denmark ignored them. Den-mark went on with its plans to incorporate Schleswig by producing a Denmark-Schleswig constitution in September, and the Rigsraad approved it in November. The premier took the constitution to the king for him to sign, but he was very ill and refused to sign in his lucid moments. The king died on 15 November, 1863, a few days after the constitution was passed, leaving it unsigned. King Frederick was the last of the royal line, and, according to the Treaty of London, Prince Christian of Glucksburg was made King Christian IX. On 18 November he signed the constitution into law. Then on 19 November, the Duke Frederick of Augustenburg, son of the old Duke Frederick, proclaimed himself Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. He based his claim on the fact that with the death of King Frederick, last of the male Danish royals, Schleswig-Holstein's ties with Denmark were severed. Holstein refused to swear allegiance to King Christian and asked the Diet to recognize Duke Frederick and applied for admission into the Confederation for both Schleswig and Holstein.14 The German princes gave their support immediately, but Berlin waited for Otto von Bismark, the minister-president of Prussia, to move.15

The legitimate reason Bismark found for his move to support Holstein was the November constitution that broke the promises which Denmark made to Schleswig-Holstein in 1851-5216. On 28 December, 1863, Austria and Prussia called for Federal occupation of Schleswig until Denmark withdrew the constitution. Bismark did not like the Austro-Prussian proposal because it implied recognition of King Christian IX. Austria and Prussia took independent action and said that they would take whatever measure was necessary.17 They signed the Austro-Prussian Alliance and told Denmark to give up Schleswig. Denmark refused, and Austria and Prussia went ahead and occupied Schleswig.18 The Schleswig-Holstein problem became a war, and by July 1864 Denmark had been defeated. Under the Treaty of Vienna of 1864, the problem was solved when Austria and Prussia were given joint ownership of the duchies and were allowed to decide their future without consulting the Confederation.19

It was in 1864 that Christian Friedrich Bothmann and his family fled the country because of the December invasion of Schleswig-Holstein by the Austro-Prussian Alliance. They came to the New World seeking safety and an end to continual hostilities in the United States. As so many other Germans did, they settled in St. Louis. But even there they were not really with their own people. The majority of the Germans who came to St. Louis and the surrounding area were from the southern part of Germany which, at that time, was practically another country. There were many differences, mainly in language, culture, and customs. And they had to build a new life in a new place with the little that they brought with them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carr, William, A History of Germany, 1815-1945, New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1979.

©1989 by Robert Louis Bothmann