Politician Rossberg in Flensburg:"I'm tired of someone else speaking for me"
Photo:Johannes Arlt / DER SPIEGEL
The house stood in the far north of the republic and had a flagpole. The new owner brought a red and white pennant from a trip to Denmark and hoisted it. In the evening he heard a cyclist calling: "Kiek mol, Danes! Ööööh." Robert Habeck gives the "uh" from 20 years ago with disgust in his voice. The rejection totally surprised him, he says. Officially, the relationship between the Germans and the Danish minority is considered exemplary.
The current Green Party leader almost joined the Danish minority representation. Habeck speaks fluent Danish, headed a minority scout group, and his four sons attended Danish schools in Germany. In Schleswig-Holstein everyone is free to profess to be Danish. "But that was nothing for me," says Habeck. So he joined the Greens in 2002 and rose to the top.
Now the regional party, the South Schleswig Voters Association (SSW), is moving to Berlin. The Danes want to win their own mandate in the federal election in autumn 2021 and move into parliament. That may sound absurd, but the chances are not bad, because as a minority representation, the party is exempt from the five percent threshold. Already 40,000 votes - depending on the size of the parliament even fewer - could be enough for a mandate in Berlin. In the last state election in Kiel in 2017, the SSW received 49,000 votes, significantly more than are registered in the association of the Danish minority, the Sydslesvigsk Forening. Some also choose the party up here out of ties to their homeland or out of protest.
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