ABSTRACT
Denmark is the only Scandinavian country that is physically attached to Central Europe and thus located directly in the hegemonic shadow of Germany. It has served for centuries as the main bridge for the movement of people, goods, and ideas to and from the rest of the North. The intermediate geographic location has brought the Danes closer than their more isolated northern neighbors to the rest of the Continent. As a result, Scandinavians tend to regard the small country as the most "European" member of the Nordic grouping of nations. Like other Western Europeans, the Danes were completely taken aback by the great political earthquake of 1989-1990, No observer had prepared them for the rapid collapse of the established Communist systems in Central and Eastern Europe. Least of all had they anticipated Germany's swift drive toward unification after forty years of division into two states, ruled by rival elites who subscribed to the competing ideologies of the Cold War.
