Thorvald Stauning - Legacy

Legacy

Like many other workers' leaders of his generation, such as Hjalmar Branting in Sweden, Stauning was a charismatic leader who played an important role in integrating Danish society after the social changes following the Industrial Revolution and common suffrage. His campaign slogan, "Stauning or Chaos," (Danish: Stauning eller Kaos) resonated in a nation undergoing a period of massive unemployment caused by the economic, social and political turmoil of its neighbors and trading partners, notably Denmark's chief trading partner Germany. The following Great Depression brought Danish unemployment to unprecedented heights. This period of widespread social malaise was fertile ground for populist leaders like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, who could communicate a confident and coherent vision to the masses. Stauning was such a man for Denmark, and his popularity won the Social Democratic Party 46% of the total votes in the 1935 Folketing election, a figure never again reached by this or any other Danish party.

He was given a state funeral in 1942, an honour normally not bestowed on Danish prime ministers. Although Denmark's relationship with Germany during World War II has been controversial, Stauning's legacy in Denmark remains positive. His popularity in the 1930s acted as a force limiting the growth of other populist parties, most importantly, the Nazi party, which remained politically insignificant. Stauning also played a major role in containing the constitutional Easter Crisis of 1920 where he brokered a deal with the king in which the monarch accepted a reduction of his own role to a merely symbolical one, avoiding any future interference in the functioning of parliamentary democracy. In return, Stauning kept the pro-republican elements of the Social Democratic Party in line, and ensured his party's political support to the continuation of the Danish monarchy. His government was also responsible for laying the foundations to the future Danish welfare state.