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Flag used by the South Schleswig Association showing the Schleswig lions

The Danish minority in Southern Schleswig, Germany, has existed by this name since 1920, when the Schleswig Plebiscite split the German-ruled Schleswig into Northern Schleswig, with a clear Danish majority which became part of Denmark, and Southern Schleswig which remained a part of Germany, leaving a small number of Danes in Germany.

Denmark has continued to support the minority financially. Danish schools and clubs have been run in the region, until 1926 in Flensburg only, and thereafter throughout the region.

Membership in the Danish minority has always been fluid, as there are no objective criteria to distinguish a German Schleswigian from a Danish. While over 12,000 of the population of South Schleswig voted for Denmark in the 1920-plebiscite and 9,000 remained organised in the Danish cultural association by the beginning of the 1920s, only about 3,000 were organised in the association by the end of the Nazi dictatorship.

After World War II, many people chose to join the Danish minority in hopes of joining the much more prosperous Denmark. This was partly caused by a wish to live in a free and democratic country and a rediscovery of Danish family roots, as many Schleswigians are of Danish or mixed extraction. Social hardships in the aftermath of the war probably played another distinctive role, as a high proportion of the 'new Danes' had a lower class background, while only very few of the old elite changed nationality. (As the Danish government provided food aid to the minority from 1945–49 this contingent became derogatorily known as "Speckdänen", ie. "bacon Danes"). At the end of 1946, the minority had thus reached a membership of 62,000.

However, the Danish government and the British Occupation Zone governors both opposed Southern Schleswig joining the kingdom, and a referendum was never held in Southern Schleswig. Controversy over the issue divided two of the main Danish parties, and both Venstre leader and Prime Minister Knud Kristensen and Conservative leader John Christmas Møller ultimately broke with their respective parties over the issue. In 1953 the so-called Programm Nord (Northern Programme) was set up by the Schleswig-Holstein state government to help the area economically. This caused the Danish minority to decline until the 1970s. Since then, the minority has slowly been gaining size, and these days numbers around 50,000.

• Karelian question in Finnish politics

• The Danish minority (Danish)
• Information about the Danish minority (German)