The People's Home

Facts

Meeting house for Danish speakers

South Jutland from Kongeåen to Ejderen was German territory after the defeat in 1864. From about 1890, the German authorities put increasing pressure on the local innkeepers to make life difficult for Danish societies trying to rent function rooms. In response, from 1892 the societies began building their own meeting houses. In 1900, the Danish Language Society bought a place of entertainment called Schweitzerhalle in Aabenraa, and renamed it The People's Home". The dance pavilion was converted into a meeting house and the bowling alley became a book depot for the Language Society's library. Soon the People's Home became the meeting place for the Danish movement in South Jutland. Portraits of the most prominent leaders in this Danish movement still hang in the gallery of the People's Home. "

Public place

Selected entry

H.P. Hanssen's speech in 1918

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Story written by Kim Furdal

Time / Periode 1900

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An important photograph shows the expectant audience that assembled in front of the People's Home on 17 November 1918. A good 3,000 visiting Danish-minded South Jutlanders are looking up at the leader of the Danish movement in South Jutland, H.P. Hanssen, holding forth on the balcony at the People's Home. He is giving the speech of his life about the imminent reunification of South Jutland. Four years of war were finally over, and Germany collapsed in October 1918. That blazed a trail for the reunification of South Jutland. But the price was high. About 5,000 South Jutlanders failed to return from the fronts and South Jutland was a shadow of its former self. It was a historic moment that H.P. Hanssen rounded off with a verse by Norwegian poet Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson: All that fathers have fought Mothers have cried The Lord has eased So we won our right" "