Talk:1920 Schleswig plebiscites

Lacking fatcs
1.	 “Danish” implies “to be part of” (or somebody may explain what it should mean else), so the Duchy of Schleswig was only Danish-ruled, not Danish. Since Schleswig was a Duchy, it has always been only linked to the king of Denmark by a personal union or had even been independent temporarily, likewise the Duchy of Holstein and for some times the Duchy of Lauenburg and the Kingdom Norway. Please refer also to the speech of Mr Neergaard, the Danish Prime Minister (Statsminister) 1920 who explicitly emphasised that important fact: “We speak about reunification. The matter is that never in our history of thousand years Sønderjylland [= Schleswig] has been one with Denmark.” And formally, Denmark called the surrendering not “genforening” (reunification), but “indlemmelse” (incorporation, annexation) – please refer to the “Myths about Schleswig”-source.

2.	Before 1920, there was no defined part “Northern Schleswig” in the Duchy, the definition of a specific “Northern Schleswig” was only made just before the plebiscites themselves by defining the Zone I.

3.	The possibility to make such a plebiscite has existed twice, but both times, a plebiscite has been refused by Denmark (not by the Prussians or the Government of the Duchy)! Please refer to the related footnote.

4.	The conditions of the plebiscites were defined by Denmark and were therefore unilateral. Please refer also to the sources.

5.	As mentioned above, Schleswig has not been part of the Kingdom of Denmark, therefore it could not be “returned” and “regained”. I know that the Danish call the 1920 surrendering of Northern Schleswig a “genforening”, i.e. a reunification – but if you refer to the sources, especially about the modern Danish myths, you will find out that this is the 19th century nationalistic view. The correct (official!) Danish term is "indlemmelse", which means incorporation!

6.	The results of the plebiscite should be integrated into the article in detail, some basic information about the historians Clausen and Tiedje also – and overall the article merits still a lot of further details.

41.215.210.75 17:38, 27 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.215.210.75 (talk)

Title of the article
Should the title not be "Schleswig referendum" instead of "Schleswig Plebiscites"? Plebiscites redirects to referendum which indicates, at least to me, that referendum is the better word. Kingjeff (talk) 05:26, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Plebiscite or referendum?
The article is about plebiscites, as reflected in its title. A plebiscite is different from a referendum. In a plebiscite, the people of a region vote, each indicating which nation they prefer their locality to be in, and a border is drawn according to the results. In a referendum, the people of a nation or region vote as a whole, and a single decision is made as a result.

The "Schleswig plebiscites" were plebiscites, and are so called in the sources cited, and by historians. They were not referendums, and are not called referendums in the sources cited (or by historians, so far as I am aware). So it is confusing when the article uses the word "referendum" for them. I propose replacing the word "referendum" throughout the article, except where it is used of an actual referendum, the Danish constitutional referendum, 1920. Maproom (talk) 18:42, 4 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Looking at various definitions, including Wikipedia's, there does not seem to be clear consensus for your unambiguous definition. Most seem to just use "plebiscite" as a synonym for "referendum". But some do agree with you, and on the word "plebicite" seems to have a more appropriate nuance for this use. So I would be fine with changing all occurrences of "referendum" in the article. Thue (talk) 08:25, 5 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Ok, done. Maproom (talk) 17:55, 16 July 2016 (UTC)