2008 Rediscovery Tour
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Minister for Food and Agriculture Eva Kjer Hansen, Ambassador Cain and other co-riders on the road between Padborg and Aabenraa. Click for photo gallery.
13 June - Day 29; Shackenborg - Aabenraa - 86 km (1957)
After a memorable dinner at Shackenborg and a
comfortable night’s sleep, we headed out in the
rain for the 35 km ride to the Naturmælk (Nature
Milk) Dairy. This small but unique operation is
the most successful organic dairy in Denmark,
producing organic milk, cheese and butter,
including the butter that we most frequently
serve at the Residence. Dairy Manager Leif Friis
Jørgensen gave us an interesting insight into
the operation of the Dairy, which is owned by 33
farming partners who together produce 33 million
liters of milk each year. Started in 1993, the
company has had an impressive growth in Denmark,
and now has a turnover of more than 200 million
DKK, enjoying growth of almost 25% per year for
the past six years. This is a testimony to
aggressive marketing and to the health-conscious
trends in eating. During the tour of the facility
we enjoyed watching the American-made milk-carton
filling machine, which produces 6,000 cartons per
hour.
Leaving the Dairy, in spite of the rain, we were
running about thirty minutes ahead of schedule so
we made one of the unplanned, but really memorable
stops that I have come to so enjoy on the Tour.
Philip remembered that just a few km off the
planned route was the Frøslev Concentration
Camp, built during the German Occupation. We
spent about 30 minutes touring the historic site,
which was built in August 1944 on an agreement
with the Germans and the Danish government that
the Germans would house Danish prisoners here
rather than sending them to Concentration Camps
in Germany or other places in Europe. One month
later the Nazis broke the agreement and sent
captured Danish resistance fighters, the few
remaining Jews left in Denmark, and other Nazi
opponents from here to Contentration Camps.
Altogether, 1600 were sent from here to
concentration camps in Germany, where 220 died.
Another 1,400 prisoners were held here during the
Occupation. After the War the Camp held Nazi
collaborators and others who had let down their
country. The Camp contains a number of museums
including a museum depicting life of the Danish
prisoners during the Occupation, which has a
great exhibit of Freedom fighter memorabilia and
a recreation of the housing barracks. According
to a display in the museum, there were 2,674 acts
of sabotage by Freedom Fighters during the
Occupation. 794 were In Copenhagen, and 99% of
them occurred between 1943 and 1945 after the
Danish Government, which had been cooperating
with the occupiers, was “forced out” on
August 29, 1943 by patriotic Danes, whereupon
Danish cooperation with the Nazis ended. There
is also a UN Museum paying tribute to the Danish
military missions overseas, starting with the
1956 mission to Gaza.
We cycled the short distance from the Frøslev
Camp to the large headquarters of Rose Poultry in
the town of Padborg. Here I was joined by Minister
of Food and Agriculture Eva Kjer Hansen, who had
flown in from Copenhagen to join me for this
“leg” of the Tour. “Leg” is the right
metaphor, because CEO Per Winther Møller and the
good folks at Rose Poultry treated us to a
sumptuous lunch of chicken served at least 10
different ways. (the fried was my favorite). Rose
is the leader in poultry production in Denmark
with a turnover of 1.7 billion Dkr, from a
production averaging 300,000 birds a day. The
Cartoon Crisis had a major impact on the country
as a large part of its exports have historically
been to the Middle East. Per says that on the
original publication of the Cartoons many of the
their customers in the Middle East were willing
to forgive what they described as “Danish
foolishness” at the publishing of the cartoons,
but he says that when they were republished a few
months ago, these same customers said “the
second is an insult”, and have been pulling
their products off the shelves. The Company has
been trying to get their facilities approved for
export to the US (where people consume more than
twice as much poultry per person as in Denmark
and the rest of Europe), but slaughterhouse
conditions have been a challenge. (The Minister
is working of this issue as well.) The company
has employed with great effect the “Six
Sigma” system of management and inspiration
that was launched by legendary General Electric
CEO Jack Welch. I really enjoyed talking about
management styles on the next leg of the ride
with Per’s son Jon who hopes to study for his
MBA in applied mathematics and economics in the
States. I also really enjoyed visiting with
15-year old Megan, an exchange student in the
local High School, who has been in Denmark for
six months and has thoroughly enjoyed here time
here.
On the 30 km ride to Aabenraa the wind was with
us much of the way and our large peleton, led by
the Minister giving great tour-guide commentary
along the way, made great time. I must say I was
very impressed with the Minister’s riding, and
equally impressed with her enthusiastic interest
for spearheading a global effort through the UN
for a global food strategy. It is a great thing
to see Denmark’s leaders working to play major
roles on the world stage in multiple areas. As we
were nearing Aabenraa the Minister, who is from
here, shared with me the local sporting tradition
of “horse ring riding”, a sport where the
rider spears a ring with a lance while in motion.
She says that traditionally the game is played on
horseback, but here they use all sorts of
devices, including one race with riders on the
back of the old gray post-WWII American-made
Massy Ferguson tractors! (I told her about my
finding and riding one of these in Bornholm
during the Tour).
Arriving in AAbenraa, a picturesque coastal town
near the border, I was met by Deputy Mayor
Jørgen Witte and Jens A. Christiansen and Peter
Iver Johansen. Peter is the head of the German
minority in Denmark, and Jens is the head of the
Danish Minoriy in Germany. This is the
Schleswig-Holstein region of Denmark that after
the First World War voted to become Danish, while
the region to the south voted to stay German. The
three gentlemen gave Helen and me a great lecture
on the history of the area, with particular
emphasis on the Paris Peace Conference following
WWI where President Wilson and his counterparts
consented to a plan, put forward by the Danish
leader Hans Peter Hansen, to allow the people of
this region to determine their own nationality.
Tensions ran high, and the treatment of the
Danish minority in Germany was particularly
unpleasant, until 1955 when Germany sought
membership in Nato and Chancellor Conrad Adenaur,
in an attempt to obtain Danish support, agreed to
the “Bonn-Copenhagen Declaration of 1955”
which guaranteed respect and recognition of the
rights of the respective minorities on both sides
of the border, permitting them to operate local
schools, maintain their language, worship freely,
participate in politics, etc. Interestingly, Post
WWII many in the area, in an effort to “punish
Germany” after the war, wanted the border moved
south to ‘reclaim’ this area for Denmark, but
the Danish government said that would be wrong,
that these areas had voted democratically to be
German in 1920, and that the world, and Denmark,
should respect that decision. Our guides said
that many diplomats from around the world come
here to study cross-border minority relations to
this day.
Before leaving the lovely town of Aabenraa to
head back to Copenhagen, since Helen had joined
me on the Tour this week, we made a quick stop by
Petersen’s Antiques, a great antique store
featuring first class antiques from around
Scandanavia. Since I conveniently did not have my
credit card with me, Helen vowed that we would
return when we make our way down to Germany by
car later in the summer.