Carl Ferdinand Allen


Carl Ferdinand Allen was a Danish historian. He studied at the University of Copenhagen. He spent three years researching at the archives of England, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany; upon completion of this task, he returned to Denmark. In 1851 he became a lecturer at the University of Copenhagen and, in 1862, a professor of history and northern archaeology.
His principal work is his De Tre Nordiske Rigers Historie, 1497-1536,. He wrote the work following years of examinations of the archives of European nations.
Allen's Haandbog i Fædrelandets Historie, from 1855, dealt with Danish history spanning from the Viking Ages until his lifetime. In that work he argued that the Vikings had a fatherland feelings and that democracy existed in Denmark during the Viking Ages.
In Om Sprog og Folke-Eiendommelighed i Hertugdømmet Slesvig eller Sønderjylland, Allen depicted the Germans in a negative way and accused them of having intrinsic urge to expand and to dominate other peoples. He did so because the Danes and Germans both wanted the Duchy of Schleswig to belong in their respective nations, so Allen used his work in a purpose to mobilize the mass.