ABSTRACT
In December 1918, German-oriented Schleswigers, concerned over impending harm to their community, gathered signatures from their fellow citizens for a petition addressed to United States President Woodrow Wilson. The petition writers beseeched Woodrow Wilson not to fall victim to their northern neighbor Denmark’s claims to the Duchy of Schleswig, as they contended that the multitude of signatures displayed the region’s German characteristics. 1 This petition represents the effect the Great War (1914–1918) had on relations within the multinational community of the German-Danish borderland of Schleswig-Holstein. 2 In the period between the appointment of Prince Maximillian von Baden as Germany’s Imperial Chancellor in October 1918 and the holding of the Schleswig Plebiscite in 1920, the region witnessed an outpouring of publications, demonstrations, and speeches from the Danish and German-oriented communities, each of whom sought to convince the broader international community of the true national belonging of the Duchy of Schleswig. 3
