The city of Sassnitz (until February 2, 1993 Saßnitz) is a
state-approved resort on the Baltic Sea. It is located on the
Jasmund peninsula in the northeast of the island of Rügen and
belongs to the district of Vorpommern-Rügen in
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany).
For many centuries it was
primarily a small fishing village, around 1890 a larger port and the
railway connection were added. Saßnitz became a popular ferry
location and seaside resort. The place only received city rights in
1957, making it the second youngest city in Mecklenburg-Western
Pomerania.
In 2012 Sassnitz received the UNESCO World Natural
Heritage title for the rich primeval beech forests in the Jasmund
National Park. To the north-east of the city center, the chalk coast
begins with the Stubbenkammer and the Königsstuhl. Sassnitz is also
known for its spa architecture in the spa district and for the
Sassnitz ferry port in the southern district of Mukran.
By plane
For information, see the Rügen article here.
By
train
Sassnitz is no longer served by long-distance trains. In
regional traffic there is an hourly connection from Rostock
(Hanse-Express) and Stralsund. The main train station is in the center
of the city. The newly designed bus station is directly adjacent.
Another stop is Lancken station. From here you can easily start by
bike in the direction of the Königsstuhl - without being endangered by
car traffic.
In the street
The city of Sassnitz forms the
northern terminus of the federal highway B96. Sassnitz can also be
easily reached by car from Binz and Hagen via country roads.
By
boat
Sassnitz ferry port. is just outside of town in Mukran.
Train/car ferries to the Swedish town of Ystad run several times a day
on the traditional "King's Line". There are ferry connections to the
island of Bornholm to Rønne several times a week.
By bicycle
Coming from Sagard, the B 96- Sassnitz does not have a cycle path.
Please do not use as a cyclist! For a safe alternative route, see the
map on the right.
A new cycle path has been leading from HAGEN to
Sassnitz since 2020. This leads through untouched beech forests and is
easy to drive on.
From the direction of Binz, a cycle path leads
to Sassnitz. This is 95% well developed. About 500 m in Mukran without a
bike path are difficult to drive.
Most of the city's sights can easily be reached on foot. Since the
summer of 2007, you can also get to the city harbor from Rügenplatz via
a newly built pedestrian bridge.
Sassnitz has a city transport
line whose buses run every hour from Monday to Friday during the day.
Jasmund National Park with Königstuhl - Sassnitz is located directly
on the southern slope of the Jasmund. The national park begins right on
the edge of the old town.
City harbor - The old fishing harbor is
particularly popular here. Here you can stroll along the almost 2 km
long pier or have dinner on cozy gastronomy ships. Worth mentioning in a
walk over the winding "Europe Bridge" from the city to the port area.
The structure offers a nice view down to the harbour.
Spa promenade
with spa shell still to be renovated
Old Town - Located on the first
foothills of the high bank, you can still find some beautiful resort
architecture here. Since the fall of the Wall, the old town of Sassnitz
has not yet been "completely renewed" and renovated, as is the case in
other places such as e.g. B. Binz is the case. In this regard, the lack
of a sandy beach in the area of the old town was noticeable. But even if
not everything is perfect like in other bathing resorts on Rügen, the
old town with its alleys is definitely worth a walk.
Erratic block
"Klein Helgoland" - According to Wikipedia, the erratic block is "370 m
east-northeast of the Sassnitz Kurplatz, 15 m from the shore"; volume:
41 m³; Weight: 110 tons
Sassnitz animal park, Steinbachweg 4 - On an
area of 2.5 hectares, around 250 animals from 60 species can be seen.
Opening times: April to September: 10am-6pm; October: 10am-5pm; November
to March: 10am-4pm; Admission: €3.50; Family card: €8.50, Sassnitz spa
card holders receive a discount (status 03-2012). The Sassnitz animal
park is on the outskirts of the city, somewhat hidden in the old beech
forests of the Jasmund National Park. Native and exotic wildlife. With
petting zoo for children. (The zoo has been closed for years. It is
currently (February 2021) being extensively renovated.)
Hike to the Victoria view and on to the Königsstuhl in the Jasmund
National Park.
HMS Otus Submarine Museum - An old, decommissioned
British submarine, the HMS OTUS (Oberon Class), can be viewed in the
harbour. Opening hours: May-October 10am to 7pm, otherwise 10am to 4pm.
Boat tours along the chalk coast are carried out by various shipping
companies. Tickets can be pre-booked online, which is an advantage in
peak season. You should be there on time.
MS ALEXANDER,
Strandpromenade 12, 18546 Sassnitz. Mobile: +49 162 9002766. Price:
adults €18.5, children 1 - 13 years €11.5.
Adler-Schiffe, 18546
Sassnitz, Hafenstraße 12 Haus J ((behind the submarine)). Tel.: +49 4651
9870888. Price: Adults €20.50. Last modified:
Shipping company
Lojewski. Tel.: +49 38 392 - 35 136. Passenger ships MS “Nordwind” and
MS “ Insel Rügen”. Price: adults €18.50, children 5 - 12 years €11, dogs
€4.
Location
The urban area of Sassnitz extends in the
northeast of the island of Rügen, in the eastern part of the Jasmund
peninsula to the Schmalen Heide in the south. This landscape is best
known for its chalk cliffs. In addition, ice age deposits shape the
landscape. Depressions are often occupied by smaller lakes. The most
striking chalk cliff is the 118 meter high Königsstuhl. Large parts
of the urban area cover different forest forms with their typical
habitats. The forest on the coastal slopes is a specialty. There are
rare woody plants such as wild pears, wild apples and yews. The city
is located on the coastal slope at the southern end of the Stubnitz,
a seven and a half kilometers long and up to four kilometers wide
beech forest. The remaining areas are moors, beaches, meadows,
pastures and settlement areas. In the south of the urban area near
Mukran are the Wostevitz ponds, a protected marshy depression. The
Steinbach flows through the built-up urban area.
There is
another lake near the Königsstuhl, the Herthasee, which is around
150 meters in diameter and up to eleven meters deep. It is shrouded
in legend and therefore a magnet for tourists.
The city of
Sassnitz forms a basic center for its region, with partial functions
of a medium-sized center (including the ferry port with
international connections).
Until around 1900
The name Sassnitz probably goes back to a Slavic
word meaning pine (now Polish sosna, Russian and Ukrainian сосна). The
area around Sassnitz is an old settlement dating back to the Neolithic
and Bronze Age. Numerous megalithic and tumuli attest to this. The
ramparts on the "Hengst" north of the city and the Buddenhagener
"Schlossberg" refer, like many other archaeological finds, to the
settlement in the Slavic period.
It was only in 1906 that the
farming and fishing village of Crampas and the fishing village of
Sassnitz were merged into the municipality of Sassnitz. Fishing was (and
is) significant. At the end of the 19th century, the desire of many
urban citizens to relax by the sea led to a rapid and strong revival on
the coasts of the Baltic and North Seas, including on Rügen. As early as
1824, the family of the Berlin theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher
traveled to Saßnitz for a bathing holiday.
In his book Effi
Briest, Theodor Fontane named the lover Major von Crampas after the
fishing village on Rügen, wrote about Lake Hertha with its Wendish
sacrificial stones and had the statement made in the book: "Travelling
to Rügen means traveling to Saßnitz." Johannes Brahms and Kaiser Wilhelm
were other illustrious visitors.
In 1871 the road to Sassnitz was
expanded, in 1891 the town was connected to the railway network from
Bergen, from 1878 there was a ship connection to Stettin, from 1887 to
1896 Adolph von Hansemann modernized the city at his own expense, among
other things he had the fishing port built . With the expansion of the
port in 1889, Sassnitz maintained sea connections to Rønne (Bornholm),
Trelleborg and Memel. The new Sassnitz–Trelleborg mail steamer line was
opened in 1897 with the side paddle steamer Freia. The new connections
allowed the place to grow rapidly. The chalk industry expanded, fish and
fish products dominated the working life and tourism grew, with other
places with beaches doing better.
From 1900
The beach
promenade was built at the beginning of the 20th century. The typical
spa architecture with pensions and hotels shaped the appearance of the
place at this time. In 1905 there were around 22,000 spa guests. After
the ferry and mail steamer lines were taken up, Sassnitz became a place
for officials with the corresponding new residential buildings.
In 1935/1936 a NSDAP training castle was built, which was used by the
German Labor Front. Its architect was Julius Schulte-Frohlinde. During
the Second World War it became a military hospital, after 1945 it housed
the Saßnitz hospital and was demolished in 1996.
From the spring
of 1945 until the end of the war in May 1945, there was a satellite camp
of the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Sassnitz. The prisoner
barracks, which were only around 20 square meters in size, were fenced
in and guarded and were located at the end of the former Wedding Park
near today's Karl-Liebknecht-Ring. The prisoners, most of whom belonged
to Jehovah's Witnesses, were assigned to work as craftsmen at the
research institute of the Reichs-Arbeits-Gemeinschaft for the
utilization of seaweed for public health and against deficiency
diseases. Commander of the satellite camp was the emeritus professor,
painter and sculptor SS Oberfuehrer Arnold Waldschmidt, headed by the SS
Economic and Administrative Main Office. Today, several stumbling blocks
in the city commemorate the prisoners.
From the end of February
1945, Sassnitz increasingly became an alternative port for refugees from
the east for the overburdened Swinemünde. In the night from March 6th to
March 7th, 1945, a British bomb attack with 191 Lancaster bombers took
place on the city and the ships lying in the harbor and in the
roadstead. 17 vehicles were sunk, including the hospital ship Robert
Möhring (353 dead) lying in the ferry bed and the destroyer Z 28 (150
dead) in the roadstead. In total, about 1,200 people died in the
20-minute attack. 537 apartments were destroyed, the east pier and quay
facilities were badly damaged.
Between Sassnitz and Dargast, the
VEB Pumpspeicherwerke Hohenwarte set up and maintained the company
pioneer camp "Pablo Neruda" for the children of its employees during GDR
times.
In 1949 the VEB Fischkombinat Sassnitz was established at
the port and employed up to 2200 workers. The VEB Fischwerk Sassnitz
with the Lauterbach branch became the second largest food factory in the
GDR. In 1977, 150,000 tons of canned fish, 3000 tons of preserves and
500 tons of smoked goods were produced.
In 1957 Sassnitz received
city rights. The fishing industry was expanded; however, the boarding
houses were falling into disrepair as holidaymakers preferred the sandy
beaches in the south and north of the island.
Around 1977, the
Sassnitz fishing fleet consisted of 48 26.5 m cutters, 15 freezer
trawlers and 2 reefer and transport ships. She landed over 60,000 tons
of fish annually.
In 1984 a new port for rail ferry traffic
between the GDR and the Soviet Union was built in Mukran. After 1991,
the Sassnitz ferry port was restructured for connections to the entire
Baltic Sea region.
From 1991, the historic city center was
fundamentally renovated as part of urban development funding. The houses
of the resort architecture were renovated and largely kept in white. The
old town harbor was included in the urban redevelopment from 2000.
In 2007, a 274 m long suspension bridge for pedestrians was
inaugurated, connecting the city center between the train station, Rügen
gallery, spa hotel and main street with the Sassnitz harbor.
From
1952 to 1955, Sassnitz belonged to the district of Bergen in the newly
founded GDR district of Rostock. The district of Bergen was merged with
the district of Putbus on January 1, 1956 to form the district of Rügen.
From 1956 to 1990 to 2011, Sassnitz belonged to this district in the
district of Rostock in the district of Rügen in the state of
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Since the district reform in 2011, the
city has been in the Vorpommern-Rügen district.
In August 2020,
Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Ron Johnson, three US Senate congressmen, asked
Frank Kracht, the mayor of Sassnitz, to end the Sassnitz public port
company's support for the Nord Stream 2 project and threatened that the
US would otherwise impose legal and economic sanctions on him and two
others involved. Manuela Schwesig, the prime minister of
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, called the letter an attempt at
blackmail; Jürgen Trittin described it as an economic declaration of
war. Since then, the then Chancellor Angela Merkel has also confirmed
her approval of the project: "The pipeline has been approved and will
remain approved." She wanted to work flat out to avert sanctions.
Population
With the boom as a seaside resort and as a fishing and
ferry port, the number of inhabitants grew steadily until the 1980s.
Since 1990 it has decreased significantly again.