POINT OF INTEREST

Duborg-Skolen

Ritterstraße 27, 24939 Flensburg

After teaching in Danish became possible again after World War I, there was a wish to establish a Danish private school in Flensburg in 1920. Shortly afterwards, the future Duborg-Skolen (Duborg School) was opened in Marienstrasse in Flensburg as a secondary school.

In May 1920, shortly after the plebiscite, the Dansk Skoleforening for Flensborg og Omegn (Danish School Association for Flensburg and the Surrounding Region) was founded in Flensburg. Its goal was to establish a Danish secondary school, which began to teach 18 children on 1 October 1920 in Hjemmet in Marienstrasse, in the former home of the Flensborg Avis editor Jens Jessen. It soon became necessary to build a new school, which was financed by the Danish parliament. The Duborg-Skolen was built on Duburger Höhe (the Duborg-Castle elevation). Designed by the architect Andreas Dall, it was opened on 29 June 1924. It had rooms designed for physics, natural history, geography and drawing lessons, a gym, workrooms and a school canteen. In 1949, the school for the first time offered pupils the chance to take the Abitur examination required to study at a university. Under the Bonn-Copenhagen Declarations, the Abitur was also recognised by the German side from 1955.[1] From the very start, girls and boys were taught jointly at the Duborg-Skolen – which was unusual at that time. Initially, the German side created several obstacles for the school. Because Mayor Hermann Todsen assumed that the pupils would be educated to become “enemies of Germany”, more than 70 pupils were forbidden to attend the school in 1923 by the Flensburg school authorities,[2] allegedly because the pupils were not academically suited for the secondary school.[3] Today, the school has about 540 pupils[4], all of whom are from the Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein,[5] and educates them up to university entrance level. After successfully passing their exams, three out of four then study in Denmark.[6] The significance attached by the Danish state to Danish-oriented teaching was reflected in the visit of the Danish prince Frederik and his wife in 2009, who were welcomed by an enthusiastic crowd in the schoolyard.