South Schleswig Voters' Association German:Südschleswigscher Wählerverband Danish:Sydslesvigsk Vælgerforening North Frisian:Söödschlaswiksche Wäälerferbånd | |
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| Abbreviation | SSW |
| Chairman | Christian Dirschauer |
| Vice Chairmen | Sybilla Lena Nitsch, Svend Wippich |
| National Secretary | Martin Lorenzen |
| Founded | 30 June 1948 (1948-06-30) |
| Split from | South Schleswig Association |
| Headquarters | Norderstraße 76 24939Flensburg |
| Newspaper | Stimme des Nordens |
| Youth wing | Youth in the SSW |
| Membership(2020) | 3,216[1] |
| Ideology | |
| European affiliation | European Free Alliance |
| Colours | Blue Yellow |
| Bundestag(Schleswig-Holstein seats) | 1 / 25 |
| Bundesrat | 0 / 69 |
| European Parliament | 0 / 96 |
| Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein | 4 / 69 |
| Kiel City Council | 4 / 49 |
| Flensburg City Council | 11 / 43 |
| Election symbol | |
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| Party flag | |
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| Website | |
| ssw.de | |
TheSouth Schleswig Voters' Association[nb 1] (German:Südschleswigscher Wählerverband,SSW;Danish:Sydslesvigsk Vælgerforening,SSV) is aregionalistpolitical party inSchleswig-Holstein innorthern Germany. The party represents theDanish andFrisian minorities of the state.[4][5]
As a party representing a national minority, the SSW declines to identify itself with a scale ofleft–right politics but models its policies on theNordic model, which often means favouring a strongwelfare state, while favouring a morefree-market labour policy than the Germansocial market economy model.[3] In 2011 it was defined associally liberal by multiple authors.[3][2] The SSW is represented in theLandtag of Schleswig-Holstein and several regional and municipal councils. The party contestedfederal elections in Germany until 1961, before returning in2021,[6] where it obtained one seat, and in2025, where it once again obtained a seat in the Bundestag.[7]
As a party for the national Danish minority inSouthern Schleswig, the SSW is not subject to the general requirement of passing a 5% vote threshold to gain proportional seats in either the state parliament (Landtag) or the federal German parliament (Bundestag).[4] However, the party is not guaranteed representation and must still win enough votes to qualify for a seat.[8] In the most recent2022 state election, the SSW received 5.7% of the votes and four seats. In the 2021 federal elections, the SSW stood in a federal election for the first time since 1961; the official final result gave them one seat, makingStefan Seidler aMember of Parliament, their first such member since the1953 federal elections.[9]
In the2005 state election, the SSW received 3.6% (two seats). This was enough for the SSW to hold the balance of power between the national parties of the left and right, and the SSW chose to support a coalition of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) andThe Greens, without joining the coalition itself.[3] This resulted in criticism from theChristian Democratic Union (CDU) and from German national conservative circles, who asserted that since the SSW had been granted a special status, it was obliged to defend only minority interests, and that its status should be revoked if the SSW behaved like a "regular" party. The SSW representatives, however, insisted on the full value of their parliamentary seats and their equal rights as German citizens. One particular point was that the SSW had taken a strong position on educational principles in the state, advocating for abolishing the traditional German system of dividing pupils according to academic ability after the 4th grade (approximately aged 10 years old) into different types of secondary schools. The CDU argued that since there were separate Danish-language schools, it was unreasonable for the SSW to involve itself in the affairs of the public schools.
As the planned SPD-Greens coalition did not make it into office after the2009 state election, a centre-right coalition was formed between the CDU andFree Democratic Party (FDP), and the SSW joined the opposition.
In the2012 state election, the SSW gained 4.6% of all votes and three seats in the state Landtag.[10] A coalition of the SPD, Greens and SSW was concluded in June 2012, and the former parliamentary leader,Anke Spoorendonk, was appointed Minister for Culture, Justice and European Affairs.[11] This was the first time in German history that a minority party had participated in a state government. The new coalition government had plenty of nicknames, for instance "Dänen-Ampel" ("Dane-traffic light"), "Schleswig-Holstein-Ampel", "rot-grün-blaue Koalition" or "rød-grøn-blå koalition" (red–green–blue alliance), "Küstenkoalition" (Coastal alliance) and "Nord-Ampel" (North traffic light).
In the2017 state election, the SSW backed to 3.3% of the votes, but retained three seats in the Landtag. However, since the government coalition parties lost their Landtag majority, a new government was formed without the SSW, which again joined the opposition. Exempt from the threshold of 5%, it won a seat in the2021 German federal election with 0.1% of the vote nationwide, its first federal seat since the inaugural1949 West German federal election.[12][13] Though unlikely to change the balance of power in any way,Stefan Seidler sits as itsMember of the German Bundestag.[14]
In the2022 state election, the SSW again ran withLars Harms as its top candidate. With 5.7%, the SSW achieved more than five percent of the vote for the first time since the state election in 1950. At the end of 2024, Lars Harms resigned from his state parliament mandate and retired from politics. Michael Schunck took his place in the state parliament.Christian Dirschauer took over the parliamentary group chairmanship in the state parliament. For the2025 federal election, the SSW aims to defend its seat in the Bundestag and hopes to gain a second seat. The party expects to need around 40,000 votes for the first seat and a total of 110,000 votes (6% of the second votes in Schleswig-Holstein) for the second seat.[15]
In the2025 German federal election they held their seat from the previous election, putting them in sixth place in terms of seats in theBundestag.[16]
TheYouth in the SSW (Danish:SSWUngdom,German:Jugend im SSW) is the youth wing of the South Schleswig Voter Federation. The current chairman is Maylis Roßberg.
| Election | Leader | Constituency | Party list | Seats | +/– | Status | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | |||||||
| DE | SH | DE | SH | |||||||
| 1949 | Hermann Clausen | 75,388 | 0.3 (#12) | 5.4 (#5) | 1 / 402 | Opposition | ||||
| 1953 | 44,339 | 0.2 (#13) | 3.3 (#6) | 44,585 | 0.2 (#13) | 3.3 (#6) | 0 / 509 |  1 | No seats | |
| 1957 | 33,463 | 0.1 (#10) | 2.5 (#6) | 32,262 | 0.1 (#11) | 2.5 (#6) | 0 / 519 |  | No seats | |
| 1961 | Berthold Bahnsen | 24,951 | 0.1 (#8) | 1.8 (#5) | 25,449 | 0.1 (#9) | 1.9 (#5) | 0 / 521 | | No seats |
| Did not contest (1965–2017) | ||||||||||
| 2021 | Stefan Seidler | 35,027 | 0.1 (#17) | 2.0 (#7) | 55,578 | 0.1 (#17) | 3.2 (#7) | 1 / 736 |  1 | Opposition |
| 2025 | 58,773 | 0.1 (#14) | 3.1 (#6) | 76,126 | 0.1 (#15) | 4.0 (#6) | 1 / 630 | | Opposition | |
| Election | Leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1947 | Samuel Münchow | 99,500 | 9.3% | 6 / 70 | 6 | Opposition |
| 1950 | 71,864 | 5.5% | 4 / 69 | 2 | Opposition | |
| 1954 | 42,242 | 3.5 % | 0 / 69 | 4 | Opposition | |
| 1958 | Berthold Bahnsen | 34,136 | 2.8% | 2 / 69 | 2 | Opposition |
| 1962 | 26,883 | 2.3% | 1 / 69 | 1 | Opposition | |
| 1967 | 23,577 | 1.9% | 1 / 73 | | Opposition | |
| 1971 | 19,720 | 1.4% | 1 / 73 | | Opposition | |
| 1975 | Karl Otto Meyer | 20,703 | 1.4% | 1 / 73 | | Opposition |
| 1979 | 22,293 | 1.4% | 1 / 72 | | Opposition | |
| 1983 | 21,807 | 1.3% | 1 / 74 | | Opposition | |
| 1987 | 23,316 | 1.5% | 1 / 74 | | Opposition | |
| 1988 | 26,643 | 1.7% | 1 / 74 | | Opposition | |
| 1992 | 28,245 | 1.9% | 1 / 89 | | Opposition | |
| 1996 | Anke Spoorendonk | 38,285 | 2.5% | 2 / 75 | 1 | Opposition |
| 2000 | 60,367 | 4.1% | 3 / 89 | 1 | Opposition | |
| 2005 | 51,920 | 3.6% | 2 / 69 | 1 | Opposition | |
| 2009 | 69,701 | 4.3% | 4 / 95 | 2 | Opposition | |
| 2012 | 61,025 | 4.6% | 3 / 69 | 1 | SPD-Greens-SSW | |
| 2017 | Lars Harms | 48,968 | 3.3% | 3 / 73 | | Opposition |
| 2022 | 78,969 | 5.7% | 4 / 69 | 1 | Opposition |
| Leader | Year | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Svend Johannsen | 1948–1949 |
| 2 | Samuel Münchow | 1949–1950 |
| 3 | Hermann Clausen | 1950–1956 |
| 4 | Friedrich Mommsen | 1956–1960 |
| 5 | Karl Otto Meyer | 1960–1975 |
| 6 | Gerhard Wehlitz | 1975–1989 |
| 7 | Wilhelm Klüver | 1989–1997 |
| 8 | Gerda Eichhorn | 1997–2005 |
| 9 | Flemming Meyer | 2005–2021 |
| 10 | Christian Dirschauer | 2021–present |
Germany:
Northern Schleswig before 1920:
Denmark:
Am 31. Dezember des Rechnungsjahres waren 3.216 Personen Mitglieder der Partei. (On 31 December of the financial year, 3,216 people were members of the party.)
in German| International | |
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| National | |
