Showing posts tagged as: Denmark
The Land That Banned Beer for the Greater Part of the 20th Century
❝ It is the prohibition that makes anything precious ❞ ~ Mark Twain
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Prohibition, an international movement (Source: PBS)IN the early decades of the 20th century a number of countries passed laws to restrict the domestic consumption of alcoholic beverages, most notably the US with its interwar Prohibition injunction. Typically the ban only lasted for limited periods of time in these countries before the laws were repealed. One country that was an exception to this was Iceland which established a countrywide “dry” era that lasted, officially at least, for over seven decades. Following advocacy from the country’s temperance and pro-independence movements1⃞ a referendum was held in 1908 in which adult male Icelanders2⃞ voted 60% in favour of outlawing alcohol, to take effect from 1915.
Denmark and IcelandNo to alcohol, no to Danish interdependence Part of the anti-alcohol drive emanated from political motives, prohibition coincided with the struggle of Icelanders to gain its independence, by rejecting alcohol they were distancing themselves from the parent, Denmark, and the Danish lifestyle (Danes have traditionally been among the heaviest drinkers of beer) (‘Why was Beer Banned in Iceland?’, Reykjavík Tourist Info, 27-Feb-2022, www.blog.rekyjaviktouristinfo.is).
The ban on wine was lifted in 1922, partly at least due to economic imperatives and the effect on Iceland’s GDP. Pressure came from its Iberian trading partners. The loss of their Icelandic market for red and rosé wines prompted Spain and Portugal to threaten to cease importing Iceland‘s salted cod. Lifting of the ban on spirits followed in 1935. Internally, a relaxing of the law was facilitated by the medical profession as doctors began prescribing the consumption of wine as a medicinal measure for the population. The banning of bjor (beer) however remained in force (‘Why Iceland Banned Beer’, Megan Lane, BBC, 01-Mar-2015, www.bbc.com).
Skál! (Photo: Scandification)A ban on beer but not on all “beer products” Like what happened elsewhere, consumers of beer were still able to access and imbibe the frothy ale from several sources. The Icelandic war on beer was targeted at full-strength beer…beer (usually of the pilsner kind) which didn’t exceed 2.25% alcohol was not deemed illegal. The watered-down variety and “beer substitutes” were available, such as brennivin (distilled “beer-like” potato vodka). Home-brew (Landi) flourished, as did smuggling of the amber substance (fishermen could get their hands on a case or two easily enough). If you were a diplomat you could get access to beer as part of your official state duties.
The Prohibitionists’ reasoning The 20th century rolled on and the Icelanders’ ban on beer persisted. With beer less expensive than either wine or spirits, the authorities’ worry was that if cheap beer was freely available, this would lead to a contagion of heavy drinking in the community, especially among adolescents. By the 1970s there were signs of societal attitudinal change. Duty-free liquor could be purchased at airports by airline crews and foreign travellers, by the end of the decade this dispensation was extended to returning locals.
Icelandic White Ale 5.2% ABV (Photo: Muse on Booze)End of the beer drought Finally by 1988 more liberal attitudes towards the alcoholic brew’s place in modern Icelandic society prevailed. Polls in the 1980s showed that 6 in 10 citizens favoured beer’s legalisation…a groundswell of rising opinion against the ban’s continuance pushed the Althingi (Icelandic parliament’s) hand3⃞. The upper chamber of the national legislature voted (fairly narrowly, 13–8) to repeal the ban on beer, effective from 1 March 1989 (which henceforth became celebrated annually in Iceland as “Beer Day”).
Traditional sour Gose beer, Icelandic style (Photo: issuu.com)Today the beer flows in Iceland, especially at this time in late January when Thorri Seasonal Beers are made available to the public4⃞. At any time of the year city locals can freely drink the latest Euro-fashionable craft beers infused with herbs and Arctic blueberries and just about anything else imaginable in microbreweries. Regulation of beer however has not entirely vanished…outside of airports citizens can only buy beer at the government-owned Vinbúdin stores and if you are under 20 the law still bars you from purchasing any grog in the stores or airports.
Endnote: government monopolies on consumer items are a bit of a thing in Iceland. Between 1910 and 1977 the only outlet where you could buy that staple of domestic sustenance, milk, was the Mjólkurbúò, a state-owned milk store (‘Fun facts about Iceland — Strange customs, weird laws and interesting facts’, Reykjavik Excursions, 15-Aug-2022, www.re.is). Tobacco sales are also regulated by the same state monopoly company as alcohol, Vinbúdin.
Iceland: Whale testicle beer (Source: au.whales.org)━─═━─═━─═━─═━─═━─═━─═━─═─
1⃞ at the time Iceland was in a “Personal Union” with Denmark, not securing full sovereignty and independence until 1944
2⃞ women were not permitted to vote in the poll although overwhelmingly they were in support of the liquor ban
3⃞ legislators were also persuaded by the tax revenue boost that legalisation of the popular brew would bring
4⃞ during Thorrabjór Icelanders can drink traditional beer brews flavoured with, for instance, smoked whale testicles (5.1% alcohol) – a drop decidedly NOT popular with conservationists though!
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The Law of Jante: Scandinavian Anti-exceptionalism and the Wealth and Social Status Taboo
Contemporary Scandinavian society is rich and appetising fodder for sociologists and behaviouralists. The peculiar strain of egalitarianism that runs through the Nordic countries manifests itself in a concept known as Jantelagen in Swedish or Janteloven in Danish and Norwegian⊡. The origin of the word ‘Janteloven’ comes from a 1933 satirical novel by a Danish-Norwegian writer Aksel Sandemose. A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks, set in a fictional Danish town called ‘Jante’, is “a thinly veiled roman à clef about his hometown Nykøbing Mors”, Denmark, in which he skewers the inhabitants for their foibles – “pettiness, envy, backbiting, gossip, inverted snobbery and small-mindedness” [‘The Law of Jante’, Michael Booth, Paris Review, 11-Feb-2015 www.parisreview.org]. One small portion of En flyktning krysser sitt spor (the Norwegian title) is of lasting significance, the “Laws of Jante”⊞, the list of ten principles designed to put non-conformists in Nordic society in their place. Sandemose’s so-called ‘Laws’ draw on long and widely held, deeply engrained Scandinavian attitudes⊟.
A society devoid of exceptionalism and ‘oneupmanship’ Janteloven/Jantelagen is a concept which celebrates Nordic self-restraint, “stoic humbleness and modesty”. Any sense of individual superiority and ambition is actively discouraged, as is talking about one’s personal success. The Jante laws are cultural codes which eschew declarations of a self-congratulatory or immodest kind. Nordic “Jante-ism” offers no haven for those seeking to stand out from the crowd. The benefits for adherence, Scandinavians assert, are collective ones, good for the nation as a whole, resulting in enhanced quality of life, a contribution to the “GNP of happiness” enjoyed by its citizens⊠ [‘Jantelagen: The Law of Jante Explained’, Swedes in the States, 22-Feb-2021, www.swedesinthestates.com].
(Source: worldlife expectancy.com)The Jante Law instructs on what citizens need to do to fit in to the community, but it has a punitive purpose too…if an individual fails to fit in, it provides a way of “socially stigmatising anyone who break the rules”. According to author Michael Booth, it affects the everyday choices Scandinavians make, what clothes you wear, what car you buy, etc [‘Forget hygge: The laws that really rule in Scandinavia’, (BBC Ideas video, 2018, www.bbc.co.uk].
Swedish comparisons are odious: The taboo on money and status Jantelagen is deeply rooted in the Swedish psyche, it is de rigeur for all stratum of society never to talk about one’s wealth or income. Jantelagen also prohibits people from boasting about their social status, firing off a warning shot to allay any notions they may harbour about climbing the social ladder (the codes act as a handbrake on citizens not getting above their station). The reinforcement of the appearance of an egalitarian society helps to keep the balance (ie, serving as a control mechanism, maintaining homogeneity and societal harmony). Stephen Trotter’s study of Janteloven in Norway concludes that it operates as a “form of structural censorship (where) symbolic power is exerted (in the task of) nation-building” [‘Breaking the law of Jante’, SR Trotter, Issue 23 Myth and Nation, www.gla.ac.uk].
Anything north of average is a win! The claimed benefits of “Jante-ism” has also been explained in terms of a state of decreased expectations – living by the ten rules installs a sense of average expectations from life, so anything that comes your way “above and beyond the average” will be a welcome bonus, value-adding to your existing store of happiness (Lindsay Dupuis)[‘The happiness of the Danes can easily be explained by 10 cultural rules’, Lila MacLellan, Quartz, 29-Sep-2016, www.qz.com].
A Millennial challenge to the Law of Jante? The fabric of Jantelagen in a society like Sweden remains firmly intact despite the reality of growing inequalities in income since the 1990s – the top 20% of workers in Sweden earn four times as much as the bottom 20% (OECD). There are some signs in the Scandinavian countries however that the fabric is coming under strain, especially from the changing expectations of the countries’ youth. The inexorable rise of social media presages a Millennial backlash against the Law of Jante… University of Bergen academic Cornelius Cappelen points to the pervasive influence of online platforms to effect behavioural change and undermine the Jante mindset, ie, bragging on Facebook, Instagram, Vlogging, etc, all promoting “rampant individualism” (Cappelin) [‘Law of Jante’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org; ‘Jantelagen: Why Swedes won’t talk about wealth’, Maddy Savage, BBC, 18-Oct-2019, www.bbc.com].
Exo-group influences Aside from pushback from a social media-fuelled Scandinavian youth, challenges to the unspoken social norms of ”Jante-ism” may emerge from other sectors of society. Sweden is increasingly a migrant society, estimates put the proportion of Swedish citizens with a foreign background at around 25%…this growing diversity exposes the community to the influence of outside cultures, many of which have very different socio-cultural norms to the ‘native’ ones, such as the celebration of achievements, skills and talents of the individual (Savage).
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Endnote: TPS Scandinavia’s Jante Law evokes similarities with other cultural phenomenons such as the (albeit less institutionalised) “Tall Poppy Syndrome”. This millennia-old cultural phenomenon—deriving from Ancient Greek and Roman sources—is conspicuously present in but by no means unique to the cultural ethos of Australia and New Zealand. Having freed themselves of the status of British colonies far away in the South-west Pacific, Australians and New Zealanders created through war and statehood a new and separate (mythic) identity for themselves as a ‘superior’ type of Briton…one in which “Jack was as good as his master”. This sustained myth of classlessness, sometimes described as a kind of “ideological egalitarianism down under”, was a conscious attempt to distance these “New Britons” from the rigid class system of the mother country.
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⊡ Jante laki in Finnish and Jantelögin in Icelandic ⊞ a sort of mock “informal Scandinavian Ten Commandments” (Booth) ⊟ Sandemose himself by all accounts was hardly a model Nordic citizen, irritable of nature, of questionable morality and thoroughly unpleasant to family according to his granddaughter Iben, also a writer (Booth) ⊠ UN World Happiness Report (2018) ranked the top three countries, in order, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Previously in 2016 Denmark topped the world poll
Hans Island “Whisky War”: Seemingly a Straw Quarrel Conducted with Restraint and Civility
With so many hotspots and tense border stand-offs across the world, the dispute over an obscure island in the Arctic region by two peaceful modern western democracies definitely flies under the international radar. The unlikely spot is Hans Island, a 1.3 square kilometre slab of rock situated in the middle of the Nares Strait separating Greenland from Canada’s Northeast periphery. Barren and uninhabited, devoid of natural resources, the island has been the object of claims on it by both Denmark (of which Greenland is a sovereign part) and Canada since the 1930s¹.
Initially, the League of Nations adjudged the dispute in Denmark’s favour in 1933². But given the ineffectiveness and eventually dissolution of the inaugural world body, the LoN’s ruling carried little weight.
Over the decades Denmark and Canada continued to disagree on who owns Hans Island – without either doing anything about it. Bilateral negotiations in 1973 completely sidestepped the issue of the island’s sovereignty – a maritime border with the vertical line drawn through Nares Strait conveniently left the island itself untouched, and thus still unresolved.
An assertion of sovereignty done with humour and good nature
The 1980s saw an escalation of the competing claims in a tit-for-tat exchange of flag-planting on the island. First there was the hoisting of the Canadian maple leaf (accompanied by an additional item, a trademark bottle of Canadian whisky). The Danes duly responded with their own flag and a bottle of Danish schnapps.
The issue threatened to flare-up again in 2005 when Canadian defense minister Bill Graham earned Copenhagen‘s ire with his unilateral visit of Hans Island. However common sense prevailed and both sides committed to enter into a process to resolve the matter…since then though little headway has been made towards this goal.
A proposal for Inuit authority on the ground
In 2002 academics proposed that Canada and Denmark share control of Tartupaluk (the Greenlandic name for Hans Island), with hands-on management devolving to Inuit control. So far nothing has come of this.
Postscript: A straw prize on the surface but potentially a promising long-term prospect?
Though never getting remotely close to a military confrontation, the periodic posturing and grandstanding by Canada and Denmark reflects the desire of both governments to secure possession of Hans Island. Two material considerations seem to inform the disputants‘ commitment to the cause – the possibility of oil and gas reserves in the seabed around Hans Island and the potential of the (Nares) strait as a future international shipping route.
End-note: A third claimant to Hans Island has emerged in recent years, Russia, filing its claim through the orthodox UN channels
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¹ “a bizarre sliver of territory for two countries to fight over” as one observer depicted it (Bender)
² a tricky matter to adjudicate on as the island technically lies in both countries’ waters, falling within the 12 mile-territorial limit under international law
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Referenced websites and sources:
‘Analysis: Hans Island – and the endless dispute over its sovereignty’, (Martin Breum), High North News, 24-Oct-2018, www.highnorthnews.com
‘2 countries have been fighting over an uninhabited island by leaving each other bottles of alcohol for over 3 decades’, (Jeremy Bender), Business Insider, 10-Jan-2016, www.businessinsider.com
‘Canada and Denmark Fight Over Island With Whisky and Schnapps’, (Dan Levin), New York Times, 07-Nov-2016, www.nytimes.com
‘Hans Island Case – A territorial dispute in the Arctic’, (Master Thesis), (Nikoleta Maria Hornackova), Aalborg University, May 2018, www.projekter.aau.dk
Hitler in Norway: Raw Materials for Matériel, Geopolitics, Ideology and Propaganda
Norway, Sweden and Denmark (www.geology.com)
At the onset of world war in 1939 the principal adversaries of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler were clearly seen to be the United Kingdom and (initially at first) France. So, why did the Third Reich focus so much on Norway in the global conflict?
War strategy was part of the answer. German military planning ante bellum had pinpointed Norway’s geo-strategic importance. It was also aware of the danger of a blockade of Germany’s sea-lanes posed by the British Navy. By controlling Norway’s long (16,000 mi) coastline, Germany could control the North Sea, providing the optimal maritime attack route for an assault on Britain. It would also ease the passage of Germany’s warships and submarines into the Atlantic Ocean. As far back as 1929 German Vice-Admiral Wegener outlined in a book the advantages of seizing Norway in a future war to expedite German naval traffic [C N Trueman, “The Invasion Of Norway 1940”, www.historylearningsite.co.uk . The History Learning Site, 20 Apr 2015. 5 Feb 2020]. The Nazis believed that Norway’s strategic ports were the key to control of the Atlantic and to the overall success of Germany in the war (‘Nazi Megastructures’).
Norway’s proximity to Sweden was another factor in Germany’s focus on the Scandinavian country, arguably the main consideration in Hitler’s and the Nazis’ calculations. Buried in the north of Sweden —mainly at the Kiruna and Gällivare mines— were vast quantity of high-grade iron-ore. In 1939 Germany imported ten million tons of the mineral from Sweden, all but one million of it from these mines [‘The Nazi Invasion of Norway – Hitler Tests the West’, (Andrew Knighton), War History Online, 01-Oct-2018, www.warhistoryonline]. This raw material provided the steel for the German war machine – its armaments and equipment (weaponry, tanks) and aircraft.
Kiruna mine 🔼
As Sweden was (like Norway up to April 1940) a neutral country in war-time and was freely selling iron-ore to the Germans, why did Hitler need Norway? The problem was the port of Luleå on the Gulf of Bothnia in Sweden, from where the Nazis transported the precious loads of ore…in winter it would freeze over. To meet the exigencies of “total war” the Nazis needed to keep the production lines rolling, the war schedule couldn’t afford long delays in the delivery of the iron-ore. The solution lay in Norway – the northern port at Narvik by contrast didn’t freeze over and was accessible all year round. Logistically, the Germans could easily re-route the Swedish iron ore via the Norwegian coast (Trueman). What made this more pressing for the Germans was that Britain spurred on by Winston Churchill was planning to mount a expeditionary force to capture the Swedish iron-ore mines to deprive their enemies of it [Tony Griffiths, Scandinavia: At War with Trolls, (2004)].
In April 1940 Germany, concerned that Britain was trying to engineer Norway into the war, implemented Operation Weserübung, invading both Denmark and Norway at the same time. Neighbouring Denmark for Germany was a staging post and base for its Norway operations. Denmark capitulated virtually immediately but Norway, with some limited and not very effective help from the British, French and Polish, held out against the massively superior might of the Nazi Heer, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe for over two months.
🔼 Quisling inspecting the Germanske SS Norge troops in Oslo
The Norwegian surrender came, inevitably, after the Allies withdrew their support. The German Wehrmacht stayed in occupation of the country for five years guarding the precious iron-ore route. Hitler, wanting to project a veneer of legitimacy, installed a pro-German Norwegian puppet regime under Vidkun Quisling, a fascist collaborator and leader of Norway’s Nasjonal Samling party✱. Quisling, evoking an ancient Viking concept, the hird✧, formed his own paramilitary organisation [Tony Griffiths, Scandinavia: At War with Trolls, (2004)], however real power lay with the Hitler-appointed Reichskommissar Josef Terboven.
Hitler had another, ideological motive for extending the scope of his Third Reich empire to Norway. The Nazi Führer was an ardent admirer of Viking and Norse culture. Nazi ideology rested on a belief in so-called “Aryan superiority” which elevated Nordic people such as the Norwegians. This ideology was reflected in SS recruitment posters circulated in Norway (and Denmark) during the German occupation…propaganda aimed at an historic appeal to Norwegian manhood, conflating of the Wehrmacht soldier spirit with the valour and exploits of Viking warrior culture [‘Vikings: Warriors of No Nation’, (Eleanor Barraclough, History Today, 68(4), April 2019, www.historytoday.com].
The Nazis’ program of Lebensborn –intended to create “racially pure” offspring was practiced in Norway, resulting in somewhere between ten and twelve thousand babies being born to Norwegian mothers and German fathers⊚ (‘Vikings: Warriors of No Nation’).
🔼 (L) Quisling, (2nd from L) Himmler, (3rd from L) Terboven
Hitler’s preoccupation with Norway, its natural resources and its supposed Aryan virtues, was to have critical and fateful repercussions for the “big picture” war strategy of the Third Reich. The Nazis fortified Norway more heavily than any other nation it occupied during the war, several hundred thousand German soldiers (regular army, Waffen and Schutzstaffel – SS) were stationed there – a ratio of one German soldier for every eight Norwegians! [‘German occupation of Norway’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. When the Allies launched their decisive D-Day operation in 1944, these unused, excess troops in non-combative Norway may very likely have been vital to the German efforts to stem the Allies’ major offensive at Normandy.
The Nazis used ancient Viking rune symbols on their uniforms and flags, like the SS’s sig rune insignia (above)
✱ adding a new word, ‘quisling’, to the lexicon. The charade was maintained with Hitler declaring that occupied Denmark and Norway were under the protection(sic) of the Nazi state, Hitler‘s Scandinavian Legacy, Ed. by John Gilmour & Jill Stephenson, (Introduction) (2013)
✧ in Old Norse, originally a retinue of informal armed companions, analogous with a housecarl, a household bodyguard
⊚ the most famous of which is Frida (Anni-Frid) of the Swedish pop group ABBA
Heligoland, the North Sea’s “Border Island”: A Mini Platform for Historic Anglo-German Rivalry
The small but strategic island that Britain gave away twice
Heligoland, is a tiny speck of land (a mere 0.67 sq mi) in the North Sea. The main island (Hauptinsel) is a formation of rock and stone cliffs frequently impacted by wind and storm – or as one observer described it, “an outcrop of sandstone and chalk” [Harry Campbell, Whatever Happened to Tanganyika? The place names that history left behind, (2007)]. It’s dominant geographical features are a 200-feet high Oberland (upper land) and a Unterland (lower land)✲. Just to the main island’s east is a second, smaller island known as the Düne or Sandy Island for its collection of small beaches❅. Heligoland is 40 miles from the town of Cuxhaven in the Lower Saxony region of Germany (also close to and coming under the provincial administrative jurisdiction of Schleswig-Holstein), and some 290 to 300 miles from the nearest point on the British Isles.
The remoteness and fairly nondescript appearance of Heligoland (in German and Danish: Helgoland, presumably from Heyligeland, “Holy Land”) belies a rather colourful history of fluctuating fortunes, especially over the last two centuries. Up until 1807 the island was the property of Denmark (interrupted by one or two brief periods when it fell under the control of Hamburg). ThIs “No-Man’s Land” has traditionally served as something of a haven for mainlanders – a refuge from the severe climatic conditions of the German Bight, and also occasionally from Danish taxation officials [George Drower, Heligoland: The True Story of German Bight and the Island that Britain Betrayed (2002)].
In 1807, as the Napoleonic Wars raged in Europe, the British Navy under orders from Whitehall seized it from the Danes. Heligoland was of value to the British in the war against Napoleon as a means of circumventing the economic blockade imposed on Great Britain by the French emperor (the Continental system). Having Heligoland provided the British with a handy base to carry on (illegal) trade with Europe in defiance of Napoleon…between 1809 and 1811 alone, some £86 million worth of goods passed through the island and into the hands of German merchants. Heligoland’s economic activity flourished with most of the smuggled merchandise comprising tea, coffee, tobacco, rum and sugar from GB’s commodity-rich colonies around the globe [‘Heligoland’, (The British Empire), www.britishempire,co.uk/].
“The Gibraltar of the North Sea”
A spa was introduced to the island in 1826, luring visitors and holidayers from the nearby German mainland. Some came in search of a haven of a different kind, liberal Germans were attracted because it offered them, they believed, “a political retreat from the nationalistic fervour of their homeland” [‘Heligoland: Germany’s hidden gem in the North Sea’, (James Waterson), The Guardian, 24-Apr-2011, www.theguardian.com]. The new German-British trade ran hand-in-hand with the traditional island vocation of fishing (mainly for lobsters). The permanent population of Heligoland, despite the boost, has over the years remained pretty stable, never rising above 3,000 at any point (predominately the locals have been of German stock, speaking a North Friesian dialect)〥.
A coloniser’s swap: Heligoland for Zanzibar
The status quo on Heligoland remained intact till the late part of the century. In 1890 the change occurred that was to have seismic repercussions in the 20th century. As part of “the scramble for Africa” at the time, the British traded Heligoland to Germany in return for Zanzibar and part of Tanganyika◘, adding to GB’s “patch-quilt pattern” of GB’s ‘pink’ colonies on the world map. But the British were to discover that the true cost was the loss of a significant strategic asset in it’s 20th century foreign policy. Heligoland’s location on a ‘corner’ of the North Sea guarded the entrance to the port of Hamburg and was approximate to the estuary of the Elbe, the Kiel Canal and three other great North European rivers (Drower).
▵ Aerial view of Heligoland, between 1890 and 1900
With the European powers preoccupied with war preparations by the early 1900s, Imperial Germany strengthened the fortifications on Heligoland. When war (WWI) did come, Heligoland did not escape the conflict. It was the site of one of the earliest engagements of the war, the Battle of Heligoland Bight⊕, and involved in one of the first seaplane attacks, the Cuxhaven Raid (Christmas Day 1914)(ibid.). Whatever the fortunes of the British and German forces in Heligoland, the biggest losers were the island’s inhabitants who were summarily ejected from their homes on the island, having been given no say in the matter❂. They were given only six hours to pack and take only what could be transported by hand. The house-holders’s bedding and furniture was left behind. They were ‘reassured’ that they would be able to return after the war was won – in a few weeks! (ibid.). After the war Germany in accordance with the Versailles Treaty was required to demilitarise Heligoland, it was however allowed to retain the island – despite entreaties to Britain from the islanders (returned from their five year-plus exile) that it take back its former colony (ibid.).
▵ An artist’s impression of the Cuxhaven Raid
Island spring-time
The interwar period heralded something of an economic renaissance and the introduction of large-scale tourism for Heligoland. In the 1930s it annually drew 30,000 visitors with enhanced spending power to patronise the new fashionable drinking establishments and expensive gift shops. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi consolidation of power saw a rebuilding of the island’s fortifications. Hitler harboured other grand plans for Heligoland (an anti-aircraft fortress and a gigantic new naval base intended to rival the Royal Navy’s one) but these never came to fruition.
During the Second World War, Heligoland was the site of another early aerial/sea battle between GB and Germany and the onset of the global conflict in 1939. After the Allies gained the upper hand over Germany and it’s Axis partners, the British RAF subjected the fortified island to great devastation (over a two-day period in April 1945 7,000 bombs were dropped on the island, resulting in the flattening of the middle section of Hauptinsel).
Allied victory in the war did not mean a respite from the British destruction for the island. GB having taken interim charge of Heligoland, once again cleared the island of the local population and used it as a bomb-testing range over the next seven years. This assault included a British “Big Bang” (6,700 tonnes of explosives on one single day), thought to be the single largest non-nuclear explosions ever!) [Jan Rüger, Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea, (2016)].
▵ German Federal Republic stamp commemorating the 1952 hand-back
Cold War sacrifice
After the war, the devastated state of the island proved good propaganda fodder for the new West German Federal government, allowing it to represent itself as “an emblem of German victimhood and nationalism“. In 1952, the Brits, preoccupied with the wider Western imperatives of the day (the Cold War), gave the tiny archipelago back to the West Germans as an inducement to bind them and their influential chancellor Adenauer firmly to the Western anti-Soviet camp [ibid.].
In peace, once more the rocky island reverted to a pleasant holiday destination for continental (mainly German) day-trippers. In the early 1960s Heligoland rebuilt it’s tourist industry and the island was transformed yet again into a modern holiday resort with attractive duty-free benefits and a new spa complex. The present ambience of the born-again island has been likened to “the understated charm of a classic British seaside resort, a miniature Scarborough transplanted into the middle of the German Bight”. Contemporary Heligoland and it’s harbour has also resumed its earlier role as a venue for yacht races. [Waterson, loc.cit.; Rüger, loc.cit.].
Germany’s only Hochseeinsel⊞
For all they have suffered materially and emotionally as a consequence of British misrule, in war and in peace—the betrayals, the dismissive lack of consultation, the physical devastation—the Heligolanders seem to have buried that sorry chapter in the past. The German tourist spiel for the island depicts it as Deutschlands einzige meersinsel (“Germany’s only sea island”), projecting images of quaint and colourful fishermen’s harbourside cottages. Phrases such as “offshore oasis of relaxation”, “a unique natural setting…(and)…mild maritime climate” litter the pages of published promos (www.germany.travel/).
Footnote: Promised resort lifestyle aside, contemporary Heligoland eschews many of the trappings of modernity for a more minimalist if not entirely back-to-basics existence—no autos, no bicycles (push-scooters and hiking the prevailing modes of transport), no high-rise, no internet, no invasive smells, noises or sounds of industry—a diet of peace and tranquility and migratory bird-watching, befitting Heligoland’s curative, get-away-from-it-all role over much of it’s history.
▵ Heligoland crest
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✲ these days the island also has a crater-shaped Mittelland (middle land), thanks to the British bomb-testing program of the Forties and early Fifties
❅ severe storm action has massively altered the geology of Heligoland over the centuries…until 1720 the two islands were connected [‘Heligoland’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]
〥 today they number around 1,500-2,500
◘ Lord Salisbury, the architect of the exchange, had first had to overcome staunch internal opposition to the relinquishment of Heligoland, not least from Queen Victoria herself
⊕ three German light cruisers and one torpedo-boat was sunk
❂ this has been a recurring motif with Heligoland, GB’s disposal of the island in 1890 was likewise done without consulting the 2,000 inhabitants of Heligoland
⊞ offshore island