Jens Christian Boje Nørgaard 

Migration in perspective.

After Russia's unexpected attack on Ukraine in 2022, there was a lot of focus in the media on the refugees who came from Ukraine. There was a pronounced willingness in the European countries to help the war-stricken Ukrainians in their escape. A number of refugees have sought Denmark and have become part of the many immigrations that have occurred throughout Denmark's history.

In the early phase of the war, when all of Ukraine was declared, many fled from the big cities, especially women with children sought west, while the men had to fight for the country's independence. Russia's aggression changed Europe politically and economically, and faith in stability vanished in an instant. In Denmark, it was expected that there would be up to 100,000 refugees and in most places private individuals and the municipalities were ready to help with the most fundamental things.

Until now, it has turned out to be a different picture, many refugees have returned to the safe areas in Ukraine, while others have found permanent work in Denmark and thus secured the opportunities to create a life in this country.

The war in Ukraine thus draws historical traces to the events of 1956, when the population of Hungary revolted against the Soviet occupation, and to Czechoslovakia in 1948 and 1968, where a budding desire for democracy was destroyed by the Russian occupying power.

The uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia triggered a flow of refugees, many of whom came to Denmark. The will to help was great, and legendary were the well-known broadcasts from Denmark's Radio and TV in 1957 and 1968 to collect money to help the refugees.

Throughout history, present-day Denmark has been characterized by immigration, for better or for worse. Immigration that in reality reflected global economic, geopolitical, religious and environmental changes, which in turn have given rise to new measures to develop a safe and secure society.

Both the number of immigrants and countries of origin and the reasons for immigration have changed a lot over time. It could be immigration based on the desire for employment, education, freedom, democracy or escape from ethnic, political or religious persecution.

The concept of "immigration" first arose when urban communities and state formations came, which began to regulate their borders and the right to stay in the country via legislation. The Roman Empire thus began from the year 9 to fortify their borders against Germania. for fear of attack from the tribes living there. These lines of defense developed over time into a kind of state border that marked the separation between the Roman Empire and the so-called Germania libera, free Germania. The Romans themselves used the term limes for the border, which originally meant field divide.

For Denmark, this happened in the early transition phase between the Viking Age and the Middle Ages. The formation of Denmark as a country and state is often associated with King Harald Blåtand's description of himself as the one who united the kingdom and made the Danes Christian. At least this is the text on the runestone he had set up in the town of Jelling. But today historians know through other sources that there have been attempts to form a state long before King Harald Blåtand and that in the individual parts of the country there have been small kingdoms that arose as far back as the Iron Age. Archaeological traces of these small, delimited kingdoms or chiefdoms are most significant in Jutland. An example of this is the so-called Olgerdige near Åbenrå, which was built as a defensive line facing south and built between 200 and 300 AD. By Danish standards, it is a large construction project, which to a large extent testifies to a political centralization with a ruling aristocracy.

Prehistoric times.

Studies of DNA in skeletons from prehistoric times compared to those of living people indicate that there have been at least three major waves of immigration in Denmark in ancient times.

The very first immigrants to Denmark and probably the first Danes were hunters and gatherers who settled in this country after the ice began to melt away approx. 12,000 years ago. Studies using the latest technology in genetic research show that these immigrants were tall, with distinctive features and gray or blue eyes.

Research then shows that a new population element brought arable farming to the country for approx. 6,000 years ago. In its own way, it is a defining period, as it changes the country in all areas from being a hunter-gatherer culture to a farming society. There is still great disagreement about how agriculture gained traction in Denmark. The questions are many, e.g. did domestic cattle arrive at the same time as grain breeding, did the development happen gradually or was it a sudden outside culture that carried out the structural change.

It is quite clear that the changes came from the south, and were inspired by the new conditions from countries around the Mediterranean. Agriculture was a social revolution that brought about major changes in nutrition, in the landscape, in culture, in housing and not least in organization.

The third wave of immigration in Denmark in prehistoric times was a shepherd people originating in Eastern Europe who brought the knowledge of bronze to the country approx. 4,000 years ago. Again based on DNA, one can characterize their appearance. They were taller, powerfully built and most likely brought with them the Indo-European language from which the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages ​​originate. This last group is also known as the Yamnayas.

The Bronze Age is in many areas a rich period in Danish history. The climate is getting warmer and contact with the rest of the world is becoming greater. Flint and bone, which were known from the Stone Age as raw materials for the manufacture of tools and weapons, are being replaced by bronze.

The Iron Age in Denmark is divided into 3 major periods, the first period is called the Celtic Iron Age and lasted from approx. 500 BC to year 0.

The climate changed a lot during the period and it became colder and rainier, the population moved to fortified villages, indicating that there were internal wars and conflicts. During this period, a people broke out from the east, possibly from present-day Hungary, the Czech Republic and started a migration. They were called the Celts and they were superior to other peoples because they used iron weapons.

Iron was the new raw material that, inspired by the Middle East, was used to make tools and weapons. Iron is more durable than bronze and it could be extracted in Denmark in the form of ant ore from the bogs. There are numerous archaeological finds of primitive blast furnaces that show that iron was widespread to many in society, not just a privilege for a skilled craftsman.

The Celts moved across Northern Europe, and settled several times in what is now Great Britain.

The next period in the Danish Iron Age is called the Roman Iron Age, from approx. years 0 to 400 AD Rome had gradually become a great power, and had an influence on the whole of Europe, culturally, economically and politically.

New and unknown goods appeared in the local markets, and coins from the civilized south were used in the north. Roman burial customs gained traction with local chieftains. Not everyone was enthusiastic about the Roman influence, and there were frequent wars between Germanic tribes and the Roman legionnaires. Most famous is the great battle of the year 9, where the Roman general Varus was ambushed in the forests of Teutoburger near Bremen and lost 30,000 legionnaires to the Germanic chieftain Arminius. The purpose of the campaign was precisely to occupy an area between the Rhine and the northern parts of present-day Germany, right up to the Elbe. After the defeat, Rome chose a policy that would maintain their vast territories in Western and Eastern Europe and at the same time develop a protective border on the Rhine. The connection lines to the northern German area and thus the Nordic region were extremely limited, but trade and contacts continued despite everything. Emperor Augustus (63 BC - 14 AD) wrote the following paragraph in an assessment of his political life: "My fleet sailed across the ocean from the mouth of the Rhine to the land of the Cimbri, where no Roman had before reached, either by land or water, and the Cimbri - and the other Germanic peoples in the same area asked me and the Romans for friendship through envoys". The Romans wanted to build alliances to ensure a kind of Pax Romana, which they offered to the peoples they subjugated. In many areas there were violent local wars between the peoples, but the Romans forced the warring parties to peace agreements. Thus, many saw the advantages of the structure of Roman society, namely peace, stability, a legal system, good infrastructure.

The last period in the Danish Iron Age is called the Germanic Iron Age, and is from approx. 400 AD to 700 AD

In about 300 -400 AD, there are upheavals throughout Europe, the background is not known, but there are large groups of people wandering from place to place in Europe. Often new population groups settled in an area and this creates conflict with the area's former residents. Many on the move sought the south, and large groups of Germanic tribes were on the offensive, attacking Rome itself.

There are numerous archaeological finds from the period in Denmark, often finds related to conflicts and wars, especially the large weapon sacrifices have attracted interest. Most interesting are the large weapon finds in the bog area at Illerup Ådal near Skanderborg. Hundreds of sacrificial weapons, breastplates, shields etc. were found during excavations in the period from 1957 to 1990. In connection with the finds, it can be stated that a large battle took place where the local community defended itself against an attacking enemy. The enemy came from Western Norway or Southern Sweden and probably numbered almost 1000 people, perhaps they wanted to plunder the rich farms in the area. The locals, perhaps also 1000 men, defended themselves so well that the enemy suffered heavy losses and fled. They left behind significant quantities of weapons and other war material. The locals took the weapons left behind and sacrificed them in the marshes.

It has been calculated how many inhabitants of a community would be needed to supply an army of 1000 men and the result is surprising, since it is estimated that the number is 20,000 people as a population basis for an army of this size. If this figure is translated into the emerging large farms during the period, it will mean that there should be between 1500 and 2000 farm facilities. Each farm needs a supply area, so a realistic bid for a territory that could raise an army of 1000 men was 1500 square kilometers, i.e. an area the size of Lolland-Falster. All this documents that in the Roman Iron Age there existed areas with a strong central power that could organize society. The weapons found were mainly produced outside Denmark, primarily in Southern Europe. This marks a significant trade and inspiration from the Roman Empire.

The Germanic Iron Age, characterized by the large population movements to the south and west, threatened the highly developed, structured civilizations in Southern Europe, which experienced decline and a societal social economic decline in development. The Western Roman Empire played out its importance because of its losses and the pressure on the central power brought about by invasions of non-Roman peoples, especially the Franks, Goths, Alemanni, Huns. Various factors contributed to this phenomenon of migration and invasion, and its role and significance are still widely debated.

What is clear is that the Eastern Roman Empire, with Byzantium at its center, flourished culturally and commercially, at the same time that the Western Roman Empire struggled for its existence with a weak central power and constant threats from emigrating tribes. The Eastern Roman Empire adapted, protected the country's interests, and continued to exist until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453.

During this period there is a significant emigration from the Nordic countries to the south. Tribes such as the Goths, the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Jutes, the Frisians most likely came from areas close to or in what is now Denmark. Already around the year 100, the tribes Cimbri from Himmerland and Teutons from Thy migrated towards civilization. This according to Claudius Ptolemæus, c. 100-approx. 170, a Greek astronomer, mathematician and geographer who placed these tribes in Jutland.

The Viking Age.

In the Viking Age, researchers calculate that there was a fairly large emigration from the Nordics to primarily England and France. The more well-known emigrations are to the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland. The background for traveling from the Nordics is multifaceted, the climate changed, the centralization of the new royal dynasties, the desire for rapid prosperity, in certain areas population growth increases, which brings new problems.

But this is also largely due to the fact that there was an opportunity for it. Already in the 6th century, new possibilities for transport had arisen, when sailing ships had begun to be used on a large scale. At the same time, the Vikings who went to England to trade and plunder found that they could also use their position of power to acquire land.

From Denmark alone, it is believed that 20-35,000 Vikings took the drastic step and emigrated west to a completely new land. They settled in limited areas where towns and villages were established, e.g. York in East England. The Vikings' wave of migration to England occurred primarily in the 8th and 9th centuries. When the Danish kings gained power over parts of the British Empire in the 11th century, the wave of Vikings who moved to England stopped. The original population of England, which consisted of Anglo-Saxons, strongly resisted the immigration from the North, but lacked a strong central power that could respond with force.

The Middle Ages

The introduction of Christianity into Denmark meant that peaceful contacts slowly developed with other nation-states in order to build Christianity.

The German-Roman emperor Ludvig the Pious778 -840 had helped the Jutland king Harald Klak to expand his power in Denmark. In 826, Harald Klak was baptized in the castle of Ingelheim near Mainz. When Harald returned to Denmark, he was accompanied by the monk Ansgar, who at the emperor's request was to spread Christianity in Denmark.

The German Roman Empire arose in the void after the demise of the Western Roman Empire. An idea of ​​a new ancient empire was created with the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 in Rome and it was in reality the Catholic Church that ensured the cohesion of the empire.

The work of Ansgar and subsequent missionaries first bore fruit in 965, when King Gorm the Old converted to Christianity and decided that Denmark should be a Christian country. He also built a church near the royal seat in Jelling.

Harald's baptism and conversion to Christianity were based on realpolitik considerations. The German-Roman Empire threatened an attack on the Danish metropolis of Hedeby at the time, and this could be justified by referring to the fact that the Danes were still pagans. Furthermore, the royal power could very well understand that an imitation of the German-Roman administration, tax rules, construction, trade could in reality strengthen the royal power in Denmark.

With Christianity, immigration of many different professions came to Denmark. At the top of the church hierarchy were bishops, and for several generations only foreigners had the necessary qualifications, often in a battle for appointments between the Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Christianity also created some extensive, beautiful church buildings in the 11th and 12th centuries, which were largely initiated by foreign building designers. In the beginning, the extensive construction of churches with burnt stones was often carried out by professional specialists from other countries, and from there the construction with domestic labor spread into the villages. In terms of craftsmanship, this meant a colossal development, technically and architecturally.

The newly established Danish monasteries were largely built and administered with immigrant monks. Many monasteries were established with the assistance of monks from the well-known monasteries of Clairvaux and Cîteaux in France.

Purely in terms of population, there was also a shift in the border area between Denmark and the German-Roman Empire, as German immigration came to Schleswig. In an area between the eastern part of Danevirke and Ejderen, in the early Middle Ages there were large areas with forests, but with a small population. During the Middle Ages there was a slow German expansion into the original Danish settlements, perhaps strengthened by the plague? At the end of the Middle Ages, the Danish language had penetrated back to the Husum-Slien line.

Immigration from Northern Germany also took place elsewhere in the early Middle Ages, for example in the form of Wendish tribes who settled on Lolland, Falster, the islands in South Funen. This is evidenced by a number of place names of Vendic origin, such as Korselitse on Falster and Vindeby (Vendernes city) on Tåsinge.

In the Middle Ages, there was also immigration from the economically dominant northern German urban communities of the Hanseatic League to Danish market towns. They were distinctly skilled merchants, and sold new types of goods. According to Saxo, there were already colonies of citizens from Lybæk in Roskilde in the 12th century. Many concepts and words within trade and craftsmanship migrated from German to Danish during this period. Trade was gradually moving from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea due to the many conflicts with the new caliphates in North Africa.

Outside the bourgeoisie, the Danish nobility was supplemented by the immigration of many German noble families. This led to an increasing polarization of society and a development in the direction of feudalism.

In the early Middle Ages, the royal family had close ties with German, Russian and Kiev-Ukrainian princes. Valdemar, as several Danish kings were named, originates from the Russian Vladimir and several of the kings stayed for a period at the court in Novgorod. Three Danish kings in a row Erik of Pomerania, Christopher of Bavaria and Christian I. were German princes who were elected as Danish kings. However, they had family ties to the Danish royal family and were equipped with the same court etiquette that was dominant in Northern Europe.

Renaissance, despotism.

Christian the 2nd, Danish king from 1513 to 1523, bet heavily on Denmark-Norway developing its trade following inspiration from the Netherlands. The king therefore invited Dutch farmers to settle in Amager in order to increase the production of food for sale in Copenhagen.

In 1518, the first Dutch came to Denmark, and three years later a total of 184 Dutch were granted privileges on Amager. This immigration immediately caused unrest, and in 1522 the council drew up a letter of complaint to the king, in which he was accused of "wanting to have corrupted market townsmen and occupied the market towns with Dutchmen and other skarn people". , and decided that half of the Dutch should leave the island again and that the Danish farmers should return to their farms on Amager.However, some Dutch remained on the island in Store Magleby and in Dragør.

Over several centuries, their descendants have left a clear commercial and cultural distinctive mark on the area, especially in Store Magleby. In this part, the building style also developed markedly differently.

There were other cities in Denmark where immigration made a positive impact. In Helsingør, groups of Scots, Germans and Dutch settled and left a distinct mark on the town. Between 1550 and 1600, 13 of the city's councilors were of foreign origin, including a number of Scots. For a transition, Danish kings had an idea to forcibly move parts of the Swedish population in Danish areas to central Sweden and then replace them with immigrants from Scotland.

After the civil war in Denmark 1534-1536 came the Reformation, the consequence of which was that the population switched from the Catholic faith to the Protestant faith. Until then, Denmark had been closely associated with the papal church and had close cultural and ecclesiastical relations with countries with the Catholic faith. After the Reformation, the central power in Denmark - Norway feared a counterattack from the Catholic side, as had been seen elsewhere in Europe. Clear distinctions were drawn between areas with competing Catholicism, and the fear of religious wars came to characterize the country.

The Danish Reformed Church introduced a new church system in 1536, the consequence of which was that only followers of the Evangelical Lutheran Church could have permanent residence in the country.

In 1553, 2 ships arrived at Helsingør harbor with over 200 refugees from England, where Mary the 1st Tudor had begun a re-Catholicization of England. The refugees were Calvinists, but were refused residence in Denmark as they could not accept the Danish Lutheran understanding of the sacrament. They were therefore put back on the ships and escorted to the Baltic Sea, banished from the country.

In 1559, the king and the council issued a series of laws to ensure that only the new Lutheran teacher became dominant in Denmark-Norway. In total, 25 laws were issued, called the Foreign Articles, which in a very blunt way emphasized the country's Lutheran teacher, and at the same time rejected Catholicism, Calvinists, Islam and Judaism. No foreigners could obtain a permanent residence permit without being able to accept the foreign articles. The local authorities had to carefully monitor that strangers did not practice other faiths.

Right up until the 1900s, immigration was thus only permitted from very few other countries or with special permits. However, the central government eventually found it advantageous to make some exceptions to this legislation.

Taters, or in modern Danish, Roma, are a people who, starting in Asia, have spread over most of the world. Today, many studies indicate that the novels originally came from the area of Afghanistan, India. They migrated to Christian areas around Byzantium around the 13th century, from where they spread to the Balkans.

The first people came to Danish possessions already at the beginning of the 16th century, when most of them were passing through to Sweden, that had made an agreement with the Scottish king Jacob the 4th, which made it possible for them to settle there. They supported themselves with entertainment, casual work, often the worst imaginable work such as removing and butchering animals, tanning hides.

In Denmark, shortly after the Reformation in 1536, a law was passed that ordered the Romas to leave the country within 3 months.

Not everyone followed the order, and 200 years later, Christian the 6th decided that something had to be done about the problem, when the wandering Roma were accused of theft and fraud from the already poor population. A deportation order came again, and those who did not leave voluntarily could be punished. But some remained in the country anyway and stayed in places where the authorities could not identify them.

So for a long period the number of Roma was limited, but from the 1830s several countries in the Balkans tried to secede from the Ottoman Empire, and this created an immigration of Romas also to Western Europe, including Denmark. Here, however, there was a law in 1875 that the Roma should support themselves with approved work, not with entertainment, music, or performing with live animals. 

The active Christian IV thus led a policy that allowed immigration from the Netherlands, where the Dutch provinces precisely in this period waged war against Catholic Spain, based on the desire to be an independent country with a Calvinist faith. But based on Calvin's teaching and the freedom it gave, the Dutch developed into incredibly skilled craftsmen and merchants. Denmark thus encouraged shipbuilders, craftsmen and merchants to immigrate, i.a. with the promise of permission to freely practice their Calvinist religion. In his many and large buildings, the king often used architects and builders from the Netherlands. Hans van Steenwinckel thus immigrated from Amsterdam to Denmark, where he became responsible for the construction of the Varberg fortress in present-day Sweden, later he was the architect behind the castle in Halmstad, also in Sweden, which was to show Christian the 4th's power in Halland. When Steenwinckel died of the plague in 1601 in the middle of construction, another Dutchman, Jacob Cornelissen, took over the building projects.

A source of inspiration also for the Duke of Gottorp Frederik the 3rd, who in the 1620s had Dutch craftsmen create the town of Frederiksstad in North Schleswig. The first inhabitants were Dutch Calvinists, who were given freedom of religion and freedom from customs for 20 years.

In the year 1622, Christian the Fourth also gave permission for the first Jews to settle in Altona and Glückstadt in Schleswig. Most of them were Spanish and Portuguese Jews who were also known to be skilled traders. This is considered the beginning of the Jewish settlement in Denmark. It was not until the beginning of the 18th century that there was a lot of Jewish immigration, who often traded in new products such as coffee, chocolate, but also in the food industry. In 1722, the first Jew Simon Lazarus was able to open a business in Copenhagen.

There was still a restriction on immigration, as one had to pay 1,000 Riksdaler for a residence permit unless one was given various privileges through the government.

The town of Fredericia was founded as a fortress town, but also had to function as a trade center for Jutland, had difficulty attracting inhabitants, so in 1682 the town was given permission for Jews and non-Lutheran Christians to settle here, unlike the rest of Denmark. The city was therefore characterized by a number of faiths, which for many years formed rather closed communities. Both Catholic, Jewish and Reformed congregations developed. A well-known congregation were Huguenots who had fled from France. The Huguenots wanted to reform the Catholic Church in France and there were numerous violent conflicts between Catholics and Huguenots from the beginning of the 16th century. King Louis XIV of France 1643-1715, was eager to persecute the Protestants and made conditions for the Huguenots so intolerable that they fled the country. They also had a reputation for being industrious and skilled, and several Protestant princes invited them to settle in their lands. This also applied to Denmark, where Frederik IV (1699-1730) had several hundred families move from the principality of Brandenburg, where they had temporarily resided, to Fredericia.

A similar religious settlement took place almost half a century later, when Christiansfeld was founded in 1773 by Herrnhut immigrants from Germany.
The Herrnhuters were part of  a Congregation, which was formed around Europe  with a starting point in Saxony. Christiansfeld is centered around the church, which is surrounded by rows of almost identical houses. The cemetery has flat gravestones, lying in long rows with the inscription facing east. Women on the right side and men on the left side of the entrance to the cemetery.

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the Danish population increases, and there is an increased need for more food. Therefore, throughout the period, the central government gets a group of German farmers, later called potato Germans, to immigrate to the country to help cultivate the Jutland heath, primarily the heath at Karup in Central Jutland. The idea of ​​calling in foreign labor when a new production had to be started continued into the 19th century. At Frederiksværk's ironworks and Raadvads Fabrikker, since the 18th century, it was Swedish and German craftsmen who produced knives for the household and weapons for the military.

In many places, also in the countryside, they tried to build industry based on the domestic raw materials, English and German professionals were called in to take part in the process. An example of this is the Schroll family, who immigrated from Schleswig-Holstein and founded an institute for Flax Breeding at Brahetrolleborg Estate near Faaborg in the 1790s and thus laid the foundation for effective flax breeding in Denmark.

Ever since the Swedish wars, part of the Danish military had been an enlisted army recruited in Denmark, Schleswig, Holstein and also in German duchies. This was thus also a source of immigration until 1849. One result of this was that the Danish army used German as a command language until 1773.

During the 18th century, religious tolerance became real to some extent under the influence of the ideals of the Enlightenment. In Denmark, according to the Royal Act of 1665, religion was compulsory, but during 1685, Christian V. promised free religious practice for emigrants who started businesses in Copenhagen. A few years later, in 1689, the reformed church in Copenhagen was inaugurated with a German and a French department. Catholics were gradually tolerated, and in 1809 all Jews were allowed to reside legally in the kingdom without special permission, which gradually led to an emigration from Fredericia to other Danish cities. Jewish congregations gradually arose in many provincial towns. In Faaborg, Assens, Nakskov there were thus Jewish congregations right back to the beginning of the 19th century. The Faaborg Jewish Cemetery, which can still be visited, was in use in the period 1806-1983, and the uniform gravestones still stand in rows in the cemetery.

During the period, there was also a new form of immigration from the German duchies, where the immigrants primarily worked with the design of the mercantilist policy and with developing agriculture and not least the state administration. Since the introduction of absolutism in 1660, the royal power needed a loyal administration that could take care of the governmental activities surrounding it. Many nobles move from the German duchies to Denmark, creating new families with different German names: Rantzau, Holsten, Bugge, while old Danish nobles with names like Munk, Bille, Marsvin, Gjedde, Løkke, Trolle are displaced. This was especially pronounced after 1750, when the new economic, cultural elite was dominated by Germans, who were a regular part of the king's advisers. Examples of this are Johan Sigismund Schulin, who was foreign minister 1735-50, Johan Ludvig Holstein and Adam Gottlob Moltke and Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff. They all had important positions in state administration and significance for cultural life. Other important German immigrants can be mentioned, e.g. the natural scientist Carsten Niebuhr, who traveled around the unknown Arab world. Other examples of well-known figures belonging to the new bourgeoisie from abroad were the historian Paul-Henri Mallet, and the French artist Jacques-François-Joseph Saly, who designed the equestrian statue of Frederik the 5th.

The culmination and end of this group's dominance was expressed through the German-born Johann Friedrich Struense, who, as Christian VII's physician and adviser in collaboration with his friend Count Enevold Brandt, gradually took power in the country and ruled Denmark with absolute authority. The starting point for their rule was characterized by the ideas of the Enlightenment that the power of the state should be developed for the benefit of the citizens and the colossal economic power of the landowners should in return be reduced. Struense began a relationship with Queen Caroline Mathilde, which further strengthened his power. Together they had a daughter, Louise Augusta.

This caused much dissatisfaction and in 1772 the 2 protagonists were stripped of their power through a coup led by Ove Høegh-Guldberg. Under Struense, the population's dissatisfaction with the foreign power elite had grown, and with Guldberg, who was the teacher of Hereditary Prince Frederik, the understanding of nationalism grew. Guldberg was conservative, and therefore a fierce opponent of Struensee and his reforms. In the coup against Struensee on 17 January 1772, Guldberg played a central role as the one who mediated the contact between Struense's strongest opponent, the dowager queen Juliane Marie, and the leaders of the coup. Struense and Enevold Brandt were executed the same year for treason

The consequences of these events were the law on Danish citizenship in 1776, according to which only the king's own subjects henceforth had access to state offices. In the subsequent time, there was a highly regulated immigration and hostility towards German culture.

Throughout the following decades, the assimilation of the various immigrant groups into the new society that developed during the 1800s grew.

Recent times.

In the 19th century, an industry slowly developed in Denmark. The first industrial plants were primitive and based on sales on the domestic market. But gradually large companies grew, and this required new construction works, again there was a need for skilled foreign labour. Construction of railways was very labour-intensive and many English, German and Swedish workers took part in the construction. This new infrastructure brought fast transport, which opened up new opportunities for production and export. Many activities were underway, ports were expanded and rebuilt, the dykes in the southern part of the country were improved, the heath in Central Jutland was converted to agricultural land, meadows were drained, new industries were developed.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many Eastern Europeans and Swedes came to Denmark to work in agriculture. They were given seasonal work in connection with the beet campaigns, which especially dominated the flat field area on Lolland-Falster. Many came from the countries, especially from Poland, which were effectively ruled by Russia and Austria, Prussia. Most traveled back to their home country when the seasonal work was completed. It is considered probable that at times there were as many as 15,000 farm workers from Eastern Europe in Denmark, and around 6,000 chose to obtain Danish citizenship.

The oppressive conditions, especially in the Russian Prussian and Austrian parts of Poland, meant that approx. 5 million persons immigrated especially to the USA in the period 1870-1914. The alternative, like many others, was to take a job in Denmark. Pogroms against the Jews in Poland and in Russia thus also led a number of Jews to Denmark. In the period from 1880 until World War I, over 10,000 Russian Jews came to Copenhagen, many traveled on, but around 4,000 settled in the country. The Jews had often been business people, starting from the industrialization of textile production in Łódź and Warsaw.

After the rebellion against the Tsar and the bloody revolution in Russia in 1917, many wealthy families fled to Denmark. Many also came from the Baltic states, Ukraine which was incorporated into Tsarist Russia, but many also came from Russia itself. Many had roots in the German families that had immigrated to Russia at an earlier time to get a share of the large agricultural lands or to be part of the military. It is estimated that around 3,000 people from Eastern Europe settled in Denmark shortly after the revolution. Most chose to settle in Købenavn.

At this time, it was necessary to have a residence permit from the police authority to be in Denmark. If you had obtained a residence permit, the duration was limited to 3 months, and therefore it was necessary to constantly apply for an extension. You got citizenship after 15-20 years, if you hadn't broken the law.. So the people who had come to Denmark after the revolution didn't get Danish citizenship until as late as the 1930s and 40s.

The refugees were primarily officers and businessmen, there were not many unskilled and farm workers who had the opportunity to escape from the new regime. Many became self-employed in service professions and within art and culture, or in the business world, even though unemployment in Denmark in the 1920s and 1930s was really high.

The occupation and the post-war period.

In 1933, the Nazis take over power in Germany. This led to new groups of refugees coming to Denmark in the years leading up to the Second World War. It was persecuted political opponents and Jews who were again hit by pogroms. Many used Denmark as a transit country and fled to the USA or other countries in Europe. When Denmark was occupied in 1940, around 7,000 Jews lived in the country, of which approximately 1,000 were German refugees. In October 1943, the Germans tried to arrest and deport the Jews to camps in Eastern Europe, but the vast majority managed to escape across the Øresund to Sweden. The Jews who were caught during the action in October were sent to Theresienstadt in the Czech Republic.

As World War II draws to a close, around 300,000 refugees from Eastern Europe come to Denmark. The majority of them are German civilian citizens who, as the German army withdraws, flee from the advance and brutality of the Soviet army. I Up to 9 million people from Eastern and Central Europe were affected by new border drawings and population movements in the period after the war. Many of them sought towards more peaceful and liberated areas. In Denmark they were not welcome, but they could not be sent out of the country, so they were accommodated in camps. Here they were kept sharply separated from the population. During the period from 1946 to 1949, the many German refugees were sent back to Germany.

Among the refugees who were received in the last years of occupation, there were also a number of prisoners of war, primarily Polish, French and Russian from the German-occupied areas. They numbered around 30,000 and came to Denmark by very different routes. On Langeland near Påø, a floating dock ran aground on the afternoon of 4 May 1945. On board were 1,400 Soviet and French prisoners of war who had left the northern German island of Rügen under German guard four days before. When the tugboat came under fire, the German captain chose to cut the cable and let the prisoners of war drift on at will. These refugees were also accommodated in camps but under much freer conditions, and often had good contact with the local population. Due to the conditions in their home countries, some chose to stay in Denmark and gradually gained citizenship.

During the Cold War, refugees came continuously from Eastern and Central Europe, many fleeing the political and economic oppression that the Soviet Union forced the countries to accept. In the beginning, a number of businessmen came, whose companies were transferred to state ownership. Later there came Jews from Czechoslovakia, Poland, who were again persecuted because of their faith. As time went on, more and more average citizens fled the oppressive regime.

In 1956 there was an uprising in Hungary against the Soviet occupation forces in Hungary. Intellectuals and students demonstrate for democracy and freedom of speech at the same time as they wanted an independent country. The uprising was put down by Soviet troops in bloody battles, and the Hungarian rebellion is crushed. 3 years earlier the same had happened in East Germany.

Denmark received well over 1,000 refugees after the uprising in Hungary. The group of refugees received a lot of attention in Denmark, and the refugees met with great goodwill. The events led to the first nationwide TV fundraiser for the benefit of refugees. Language lessons were organized for the Hungarian refugees, housing was provided and access to the labor market created. It turned out that the 1000 refugees very quickly got into work and took training.

This happened again in 1968, when Czechoslovakia wanted reforms to liberalize and democratize the state. The reforms ended with a military invasion by the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria. A Moscow-friendly Czechoslovak government and party leadership was installed. Again, this brought new refugees to Denmark.

In the 1970s, refugees came to Denmark from countries as far away as Uganda, Cambodia, South Africa, Somalia and Ethiopia who also fled from various levels of oppressive political governments. Among them a large group from Vietnam who fled the war between North and South Vietnam. The war actually stemmed from the Cold War, and involved the great powers China, the Soviet Union and the United States. As many as 3 million fled Vietnam in the period from the 1970s to the 1990s, and 4,000 of them came to Denmark.

After a bloody military coup in 1973 in Chile where a general Pinochet Ugarte came to power and deposed the socialist president Salvador Allende, around 700 fled to Denmark.

In Asia, on the island of Sri Lanka, there was a violent conflict between 2 population groups, the Sinhalese and Tamils, which developed into a civil war in 1985 to 1989, therefore many fled to Europe, including to Denmark. Approx. 10,000.

In the period leading up to the 1970s, Denmark really developed from an agricultural country to an industrial country, as the value of exported industrial goods exceeded agricultural exports. Denmark became a welfare society with many new service functions in both the public and private sectors. The women became economically active and got work in the new business sectors. There was a shortage of labor and this shortage led to immigration from Yugoslavia and Turkey in particular. It is expected that approx. 20,000 from all over the world worked in Denmark until the oil crisis came in 1973 which destroyed the growth of the industry. Public Denmark took it for granted that most of these would return to their homeland. The term "guest worker" was used in public for a period because it was expected that they would only work for a period in Denmark to alleviate the labor shortage and then return to their countries of origin. But the political conditions in their home country, as well as the positive things that Danish society could offer meant that only a few realized a return to their home country.

The oil crisis occurred because a number of oil-exporting countries limited production and sent prices skyrocketing. This step came as a further consequence of the Arab countries' attacks on Israel. The balance of payments came under pressure, thus limiting the welfare state. The changing decision-makers were forced to develop alternative energy supplies in the form of wind turbine production and in 1972 oil production began from the Danfield in the North Sea owned by the shipping company A.P. Møller. 

During the 1980s and 1990s, new groups of immigrants arrived, this time primarily from the Middle East. There were many reasons why they left their homeland, it could be persecution, oppression or poverty. It already started with the so-called Iranian revolution in 1979, which changed Iran from a Western-oriented monarchy to an Islamic religious republic under an ayatollah, who slowly began a suppression of Western values. Around 12,000 Iranians were granted asylum in Denmark. The war between Iran and Iraq also brought a large group of refugees, around 17,000.

In the same period, many refugees from Lebanon came to Denmark. Way back in 1948, the UN tried to reach a two-state solution with 2 independent states of Israel and Palestine, but for several reasons it did not become a reality, and only the state of Israel was formed. Many fled to the surrounding countries from the areas allocated to Israel by the UN. These countries failed for political and economic reasons to integrate the many refugees and they were therefore interned in refugee camps, from which they were given permission to attack Israel. Conflicts often arose between different groups of refugees and the local population. In 1975, a bloody civil war broke out in Lebanon, in which the Palestinian refugees were involved. Many chose to flee to Europe. It is estimated that 6,000 to 7,000 came to Denmark in the late 1980s.

A smaller group was refused asylum, and occupied Blågård's church in Copenhagen for 5 months in 1991. After continuous pressure from various support groups, a majority in the Folketing consisting of the Social Democracy, the Radical Left and the Socialist People's Party chose to bypass a bourgeois government and grant residence permits to all Palestinians who had stayed in Denmark for more than 12 months. This legislation, following pressure from lobby organisations, led to a debate about the understanding of legislation around "democracy and political asylum".

The debate was further nurtured after it emerged that after the residence permit, many of the Palestinians chose to go back to Lebanon to demonstrate that they now had the opportunity to settle in Denmark, despite the fact that they had been persecuted in Lebanon.

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, effectively at the behest of the country's government. The Afghan Communist Party had taken power in the country after a bloody revolution and carried out a series of land reforms, given women a number of rights, and developed secular laws. It came to a 10-year guerilla war, in which Islamic resistance groups won power after the war against the Soviet army.

 In 2001, it was a US-led coalition that occupied Afghanistan because the government refused to hand over the person responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.

These occupations led to a massive flow of refugees to the surrounding countries. The number of refugees from the country to Denmark is estimated to be around 14,000.

It was people who had lived side by side who came into bloody conflict with each other when the civil war in the former Yugoslavia broke out in 1992. Many refugees came again, and most came from Bosnia, where they fled either to neighboring countries or beyond the borders of the former Yugoslavia. Around 20,000 Bosnian refugees reached Denmark during the 1990s, and Denmark was therefore also indirectly affected by the war.

Far back in history, the entire area that is demarcated as Denmark has been affected by immigration, for better or for worse. In the earliest history, the consequences of immigration have left their mark in the form of material, natural historical and geopolitical remains that can be observed up to today as an active part of society, nature, the economy or viewed in museums. New research methods are constantly giving archaeologists, historians and natural scientists new tools to understand the past and put it in context to a historical event or the present.

Many recent immigrations are the result of complex events that can arise from conditions such as better living conditions, economic development, imperialism, political power or the spread of theocratic dogma.

Many of the conflicts, wars, natural disasters that have affected Europe and the rest of the world have been reflected in immigration to Denmark in the last 50 years. It has succeeded in getting many groups who want it assimilated into society without major antagonism with the population. A homogeneous society has been preserved, which thus ensures cohesion without major conflicts. It is an ordinary citizen who has marked a significant willingness to sacrifice and openness in a humanist basic outlook that also reflects a 1000-year-long historical cultural influence. A cultural influence that originates from the ideas of ancient antiquity, as well as Christianity's view of humanity and forms the background for an understanding of citizenship, democracy and ethics. In the same way, the French Revolution in 1789 contributes to free speech as a requirement for the stability of a democratic society. Free speech must contribute to a continuous humanistic development and understanding that must not allow itself to be exposed to threats by religious, political or economic groups.