Conceptions of Cultural Heritage in the German Danish Border Area Schleswig/Sønderjylland

Various initiatives on a European level like the ‘European Year of Monument Conservation 1975’, the ‘European Route of Brick Gothic’ and the ‘European Culture Heritage’ which runs analogously to the UNESCO World Culture Heritage, point to the idea of a trans-national European culture heritage. This is reflected in the monument and museum scene and in monument policy. The development of a cultural heritage as an expression of shared values and perceptions of history at the same time always expresses a detachment from ‘the Others’.  In the eventful 19^th and 20^th centuries, overlapping memorial landscapes rose up in parallel, especially around the edges of Europe, as an expression of the plurality of cultural heritage discourses.

This is especially true of the German Danish border area Sønderjylland/Schleswig. The region has a troubled past as various pictures testify. Using this region as an example, sub-project B investigates the different ideas of a possible European cultural heritage against the background of shared, separated and separating experiences of trans-national conflicts. The project concentrates on the discourses on images of European cultural heritage in the tense area between nation and region, the material presentations in museums and as monuments, and the realisation of these discourses in monument preservation from the First World War to the present. The project will be taking a look at art and culture monuments like the Idstedt lion and the Bismarck monument on Knivsberg, museums and exhibitions like the Historiecenter Dybbøl Banke and the Idstedthalle, and practical monument preservation when dealing with historical testimonies and their changing assessment in an increasingly unified Europe.