The Jutland peninsula stretches evenly in a south-north direction to house the northernmost territories of Germany and mainland Denmark. Both nations have been bound by geography to a neighborhood that has not always been friendly.
To the south of the city of Schleswig stands what is the largest military court wall in Europe. In fact – in the style of Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain – it “cuts” the entire peninsula between the two seas, to become a barrier that the ancient Danes wanted to be impassable. It is an elevation between three and six meters made of very diverse materials that initially served to connect lakes and navigable river courses and later to prevent the Franks from entering Danish territory. It was King Godfrey I who put the most interest in raising this barrier that would leave the Danes with the assurance that they could not be invaded, at least by land.
But history is more capricious than human designs and, as a result of the Duchy War of 1864, Prussia overcame the wall – which was not as impregnable as its creators had imagined – and took over part of what is today the northernmost land of Germany: Schleswig-Holstein. So the Danish founding myth belongs to another country.
During the Second World War the Nazi army was tempted to disfigure the historic wall to turn it into an anti-tank trench to close the Scandinavian flank. But archaeologists like Søren Telling convinced Heinrich Himmler that he could not destroy a “monument of the Aryan era.”
Danevirke is now in an appreciable state of preservation, taking into account that it dates back to its origins a millennium ago. In 2021, the avant-garde museum was inaugurated, serving as the gateway to the archaeological site. Not only as an interpretation center, but also as a tribute to historical construction techniques.
The Danevirke wall is 40 kilometers long, and is not always easy to distinguish, so those who take on the challenge of going from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea – or vice versa – following the historic barrier will find that on many occasions it is little recognizable due to the creation of new infrastructures (at times it looks like just a mound separating crop fields). Even so, Germany is making an effort to revitalize knowledge of the Danevirke, especially considering that UNESCO has declared it a world heritage site.
The land of Schleswig-Holstein has an important Danish community that maintains its traditions, speaks its language and has some protection from the German state. It is not unusual to see red flags with the white Scandinavian cross flying on some buildings. Even so, it still pains the Danes that the Herculean work carried out by their ancestors between the 6th and 10th centuries precisely to prevent their southern neighbors from arriving is now in foreign hands.
Accessing the modern Danevirke Museum by road from the city of Schleswig only takes ten minutes, as it is nine kilometers away. From the state capital, Kiel, it is a 40-minute drive. To follow the wall you have to have a detailed map and be tenacious.
