Stamp Story No. 110 Denmark Defied Hitler -With Stamps

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30064, 23 February 1963, Page 8

Stamp Story No. 110 Denmark Defied Hitler -With Stamps

[By KEN ANTHONY]

JUST a humble little stamp, seemingly innocuous with its attractive windmill design. Yet the subject, combined with the date of its appearance, amounted to a gesture of defiance by tiny Denmark against the might of Nazi Germany. For this stamp, one >f a set of three issued in January, 1937, shows Dybbol ■ Mill, near Sonderborg in Schleswig,

scene of heroic resistance by the Danes against the German invaders during the war of 1864. Ever since that time the mill has been a symbol of Danish independence. Moreover, the stamps had a surcharge in aid of a memorial to H. P. Hanssen, who represented Schleswig in the German Reichstag and campaigned for the return of the northern pait of the territory to Denmark. Schleswig, a duchy situated between Denmark and Germany, was for centuries a

source of contention between the two countries. The King of Denmark first annexed it in 1460; in 1848. an unsuccessful rebellion broke out, during which the insurgents issued their own stamps.

In 1864 the death of King Frederick VII of Denmark without leaving a direct heir provided the excuse for Prussia and Austria to invade Schleswig. The Danes were defeated and obliged to cede Schleswig and its companion duchy of Holstein to the invaders.

Then the two allies fell out In 1866 Prussia, led by Bismarck. defeated Austria and added Schleswig to its domains. At the same time Bismarck annexed the German State of Hanover. Prussia was now the unchallenged leader of Germany. Hanssen’s campaign culminated in success after the First World War, when Denmark recovered North Schleswig as the result of a plebiscite. Special stamps were issued during the plebiscite period in 1920; later the same year Denmark celebrated the reunion with a set of three commemoratives. And it was at Dybbol that King Christian X appropriately took formal possession of the territory.

Such is the complex story behind these Dybbol MQI stamps, which came out less than four- years before German troops once more crossed the Danish frontier.—Central Press Features, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.)