Lecture by Prof. Dr. Oliver Auge

Global migration and its multifaceted impacts on Germany and Schleswig-Holstein are a constant topic in the media. Yet we must recognise that human migration is as old as human history itself. The territory of present-day Schleswig-Holstein has been an integral part of global migration movements from prehistoric times to the present day, as this illustrated lecture will demonstrate. The 'Land between the Seas' reflects, in its ethnic diversity – Germans, Danes, Frisians, Slavs, Swedes, Dutch, Angles and Saxons – the centuries-long history of immigration and emigration. From the Angles who emigrated to Britain as early as the 4th and 5th centuries and shaped Anglo-Saxon culture there, through the Viking traders in Haithabu with their connections as far as Byzantium, to the thousands of emigrants in the 19th century, one thing becomes clear: Schleswig-Holstein's history has always been global history.