ICES Lecture: Thomas Wegener Friis - German-Danish Borderland in the Eye of the Intelligence Services

Date: 12.05.2022; 17:15 Uhr

In his lecture "Als wir noch keine europäisches Modelregion waren. Deutsch-Dänisches Grenzland im Auge der Nachrichtendienste." Thomas Wegener Friis (Center for Cold War Studies, Syddansk Universitet) looks at minorities in the border region from a security and intelligence perspective.

Today, we consider coexistence in the German-Danish border region to be exemplary. Some even think that the minority model would be UNESCO World Heritage. But coexistence has not always been peaceful; it has long been marked by ethnic conflicts that also had security policy implications. In a new project, German and Danish researchers are looking at the darker side of the national tug-of-war and examining how minorities and the borderlands came to be targeted by intelligence agencies.

Thomas Wegener Friis is professor of contemporary history at the University of Southern Denmark and director of the Center for Cold War Studies. Among other things, he is the founder of the international conference series "Need to Know" and co-organizer of the German-Danish Summer School. Thomas is currently a visiting scholar at ICES and cooperates with EUF colleagues from media studies in existing projects and project development.