Flensburg Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Flensburg is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated at the coast of the Baltic Sea as well as on the Danish border. The population is about 85,000 inhabitants.
History
Flensburg was founded in the 13th century at the innermost tip of the Flensburg Fjord and began to rise after the decline of the Hanseatic League. Between 1460 and 1864 it was one of the major ports of the Danish monarchy. In the German-Danish War (1864) it was captured by Prussia. There is still a large Danish community living in Flensburg. The Danish name of the town is Flensborg. In the Second World War the town remained virtually undamaged. Admiral Karl Dönitz fled here in 1945 to escape the Allied troops, but was captured at last in Flensburg.
Current Facts
To Danes, this city and its surrounding neighbor towns are best known for their duty-free shops where liquor and candy until 2003 could be purchased at significantly lower rates than in Denmark.
In 2003, Denmark lowered its duties on liquor, tobacco and other products associated with a large amount of cross-border trade were by up to 50%, and the price differences are now not worth a trip across the border. (As an interesting a side effect, many more people from Norway and Sweden now visit Denmark to buy their booze and smokes :-)
The Danish minority in Flensburg and the surrounding towns are running their own schools, libraries and Lutheran churches but do not exclude themselves from the German majority. Rather than that, the co-existence of these two groups is considered a sound and healthy symbiosis.