Ben Rooney writes:
The last time Schleswig-Holstein was much in the news was in the 19th century when it was the center of a three-way tussle between Denmark, Prussia, and Austria, a diplomatic knot so complex that the British statesman Lord Palmerston said of it “The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.”
But this northernmost German state came back into the news when Thilo Weichert, the state’s privacy commissioner, raised an issue of such complexity that it will make the first Schleswig-Holstein question look like a dot-to-dot coloring book in comparison.
This month Mr. Weigert wrote to Facebook threatening to fine the social media company for failing to allow the state’s citizens to use their service anonymously or pseudonymously, in breach of German law.
Read more on Wall Street Journal.