Nordic Countries - Countries With Close Relations To The Nordic Countries - Germany

Germany

Before the Industrial Revolution, the Low German-speaking peoples of northern Germany were a part of the seafaring culture of Scandinavia, rather than the more land-based lifestyle in the rest of Germany. Even today, the folk tales of northern Germany have a unique focus on the sea and sailing. Low German itself is a North Sea Germanic language, giving it the same origin as English, and a closer cultural position to Scandinavia than the continental Germanic lands.

Parts of the states in northern Germany, namely Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg were at times part of Denmark and Lower Saxony, Bremen and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern part of Sweden, and have a long history of cooperation dating back to the medieval Hanseatic League. In the 15th century, Stockholm had a German majority population, and Germans paid more than half of the city's taxes.

Southern Schleswig on the Jutland peninsula was conquered and reconquered both by the Germans and the Danes, i.e. the border between Denmark and Germany changed several times over the centuries. Particularly the northern parts of present Schleswig-Holstein have a significant ethnic Danish minority. The region had a Scandinavian identity in Hedeby and Angeln up until its transfer to Germany in the mid 19th century and its subsequent Germanisation. Today, the Nordic character of Southern Schleswig's society and its inhabitants is still very prominent. There are Danish state schools in the area, and the Danish minority is active both politically and culturally.

Swedish Pomerania was once part of the Swedish kingdom; a time when the local University of Greifswald, at that time Sweden's oldest university, attracted both students and professors from Sweden. The cultural heritage survives in the form of many buildings, though the Swedish population either left the region when the Swedish Empire declined or was assimilated into mainstream German society.

Genetically, Germans and Scandinavians are closely related. According to recent genetic analysis, both mtDNA and Y chromosome polymorphisms showed a noticeable genetic affinity between Swedes and Germans (conclusions also valid for Norwegians).