Sassnitz (, before 1993 in ) is a town on the Jasmund peninsula, Rügen Island, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The population as of 2012 was 9,498.
Sassnitz is a well-known seaside resort and port town, and is a gateway to the nearby Jasmund National Park with its unique chalk cliffs. The decommissioned British submarine HMS Otus was purchased by a German entrepreneur and towed to Sassnitz to be a floating museum. The Sassnitz area is most popular for its famous chalk rocks (Kreidefelsen), which inspired artists like Caspar David Friedrich.
Geography
The borough of Sassnitz lies in the northeastern part of the island of Rügen, covering the eastern part of the Jasmund peninsula as far as the sand bar of Schmale Heide to the south. The countryside there is renowned especially for its chalk cliffs. In addition, ice age depositions dominate the landscape. Its depressions have frequently been filled by small lakes. The most striking chalk cliff is the -high Königsstuhl. Large parts of the borough are covered by various types of trees with their typical habitats. One feature is the forest on the coastal slopes. Here there are rare trees like wild pear, wild apple, and yew. The town lies on the coastal slopes at the southern end of the Stubnitz, a -long and up to -wide beech forest. The remaining land areas consist of moors, beach, meadows, pastureland, and settlements. In the south of the borough, near Mukran, are the Wostevitz ponds, a boggy depression that is protected as a nature reserve. The small stream of Steinbach flows through the built-up area of the town.
Near the Königsstuhl lies another lake, the Herthasee, which has a diameter of about and is up to deep.
Subdivisions The borough of Sassnitz is divided into the following municipalities: Blieschow, Buddenhagen, Dargast, Drosevitz, Dubnitz, Klementelvitz, Mukran, Neu Mukran, Rusewase, Sassnitz, Staphel, Stubbenkammer, Werder, and Wostevitz.Hauptsatzung der Stadt Sassnitz, § 1a
Geology The original landscape on the Jasmund is geologically very young. Its formation began with the end of the Weichselian glaciation about 12,000 years ago, when the ice sheet left behind there a Young Moraine landscape. As a result of thawing inland ice the underlying land and rose and hollows were filled with water. The predecessor to what later became the Baltic Sea, the Ancylus Lake, was formed.
Next, a cold steppe spread across the region. Later, birch and pine forests emerged, followed by oak forests. During the last 1,000 years, beech forests dominated the area. Lakes formed in the endorheic depressions, some of which silted up and became bogs. About 6,000 years ago, the sea level rose to its present level, leaving upland areas to form the Jasmund. As a result of the erosive action of waves and currents created, steep shores were formed that still characterise the landscape.
History
It was not until 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) important. The desire of many city dwellers to relax by the sea led, at the end of the 19th century, to a rapid and strong growth on the shores of the Baltic and North Sea, as well as on Rügen itself. As early as 1824, it is recorded that the family of the Berlin theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher went on a beach holiday to Sassnitz.
Theodor Fontane, in his book Effi Briest, named her lover, Major von Crampas, after the fishing village on Rügen. He also wrote about the Herthasee lake and coined the phrase in his book: "To travel to Rügen is to travel to Saßnitz."Theodor Fontane: Effi Briest; Anhang zur Entstehung, p. 355 zu p. 104 and p. 280, in dtv, 1995, Johannes Brahms and Kaiser Wilhelm were other illustrious visitors to Sassnitz.
In 1871, the road to Sassnitz was upgraded, in 1891 the town was connected to the railway network from Bergen; in 1878 there was a boat service to Stettin; in 1889 to the port in Sassnitz and, soon thereafter, sea links to Rønne (Bornholm), Trelleborg and Memel (now Klaipėda). The new links enabled the place to grow rapidly. The chalk industry expanded, fish and now fish products as well characterised working life, and tourism grew, even though other places with beaches were better developed.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the beach promenade was built. The typical resort architecture with bed and breakfasts and hotels stamped the appearance of the place at this time. After establishing ferry and mailboat services Sassnitz also became an administrative centre with the appropriate new homes.
Sassnitz was not given town rights until 1957. The fishing industry was expanded around that time; the B&B houses, however, fell increasingly into dilapidation. In 1984, a new port was built in the subdistrict of Mukran for the railway ferry between East Germany and the Soviet Union. After 1991, Sassnitz Ferry Port was rebuilt for services to the entire Baltic Sea region.
The official spelling of Sassnitz was "Saßnitz" until 2 February 1993. It was the spelling used in the letter of authority for town rights dated 23 November 1956.
From 1991, the historic town center was thoroughly renovated as part of the plan to promote urban development; the town's appearance improved considerably. The houses in the resort architecture style were renovated and most of them painted in a uniform white colour. The old town port was included in the municipal renovation plan in 2000.
In July 2007, a suspension bridge for pedestrians was inaugurated, which links the center of Sassnitz between the station, Rügen Gallery, spa hotel and main street with the port of Sassnitz.
Demographics With its rise as a seaside resort and ferry port, the population of the municipality of Sassnitz grew steadily from 332 in 1885 to 3,987 in 1925 and 7,826 in 1939. The further expansion of Sassnitz, now elevated to the status of a town, as a ferry and fishing port in 1957, resulted in another sharp population increase (1971: 13,676; 1981: 14,944)Deutsche Verwaltungsgeschichte Pommern, Kreis Rügen , accessed on 8 August 2010 Since the late 1980s, the population has again declined, however, to 11,985 in 1998 and 10,366 by end 2010.Source: Statistical Office of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Politics
Town council
The town council of Sassnitz consists of 25 councillors. The local elections of 7 June 2009 produced the following division of seats on the council:Town council of Sassnitz Die Linke: 11 FDP: 5 CDU: 4 Alternative Freie Wählergemeinschaft (AFW): 2 SPD: 2 Independent: 1
Coat of arms The coat of arms was adopted by the town council in 1959 and notified by a resolution of the town council on 1 November 1994. The emblem is registered under No. 17 in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern coat of arms register.
Blazon: "The coat of arms shows a red and silver lighthouse on a blue field emitted silver beams of light. It rises from a gap in the top row of a red, brick wall with silver mortar".§1 (2) Hauptsatzung der Stadt Sassnitz
Flag The town flag has three vertical stripes: blue, white and blue. The blue stripes occupy two ninths of the flag height. The white stripe take up five ninths of the height and is emblazoned in the centre with the town's coat of arms. The ratio of the height of the coat of arms to the height of the bunting is 4:9. The ratio of height to length of the flag is 3:5.
Twin towns – sister cities
Sassnitz is twinned with: Cuxhaven, Germany Huai'an, China Kingisepp, Russia Klaipėda, Lithuania Port Washington, United States Trelleborg, Sweden
Culture and sights The town of Sassnitz is the most important tourist destination in the Jasmund National Park, Germany's smallest national park by area. The Königsstuhl is the top tourist magnet in the park. At , it is also the highest point on the chalk cliffs in the national park.
Since March 2004, the national park has had a national park centre at Königsstuhl, which has two exhibitions offering visitors an insight into the natural world, the chalk, the Baltic Sea and the beech forests of the park.
On the edge of the Jasmund National Park lies Sassnitz Wildlife Park, the only one of its kind on the island of Rügen. The Gummanz Chalk Museum (Kreidemuseum Gummanz), the only chalk museum in Europe, lies not far from Sassnitz near Sagard on the terrain of an old chalk pit, worked from 1855 to 1962, and uses an open-air area with original implements as well as photographic and textual information boards, that describe the geological relationships, the mining and working of chalk on Rügen. In summer there is a regular briefing on archaeological discoveries for fossil collectors.
Harbour area
The "glass station" has lost its function as a result of the expansion of the new Sassnitz Ferry Port and today houses an exhibition and events hall as well as the Museum for Underwaterarchaeology. Here there are several exhibits of the Ralswiek boat discovery.
The Fishing and Harbour Museum documents the history of fishing on Rügen and the old Sassnitz harbour. Amongst the exhibits is the Havel fishing smack (Fischcutter). In the harbour, as well as excursion and fishing boats, is the British submarine HMS Otus, a museum piece, as is the coastal sailing cargo boat, Annemarie, which was converted in 2007 into a passenger boat.
The Alaris Butterfly Park in Sassnitz has been open since July 2003. The park is home to hundreds of free-flying butterflies in a tropical environment.
Since 2000, the club Lichtspiele has run a programme of revival house films in the Grundtvighaus.
The E-WERK youth project sees itself as a centre for ideas and projects aimed at testing and implementing meaningful and welfare-oriented jobs in the main labour market for socially disadvantaged youth and young adults. In 1995 the "Sassnitz Company" was launched to provide a lasting social network for the Rügen region. From one hundred-year-old Sassnitz power station a youth, culture, services and events centre was built with an event hall, an accommodation block, a youth hostel floor, and much more.
The municipal and evangelical church community centre at Gerhart-Hauptmann-Ring 50, founded in February 2000 as a meeting place for older people, has now merged with various other projects, such as the "Kiek in" cafe, the Spinnstube, the Klönstube of CJD Garz, the Klönclub, the clothes market, various self-help groups (Alcoholics Anonymous, etc.), ESV Sassnitz (weight training for everyone) and the church youth club, Saskia.
Cultural groups include De Jasmunder Plattdänzer, a folk dance group of girls and boys (aged 6–18), the Sassnitz youth brass band, the Sassnitz People's Choir, formed in 1964, and the Sassnitz Carnival Club, founded in 1975.
Buildings
Sassnitz has the longest outer mole in Europe with a length of . Construction started in 1889 and it was finally completed in 1912. The present town hall was designed by Berlin architect, Gustav Bähr, and opened in 1910 as a heated baths and community centre for members of the united parish of Sassnitz. On the main entrance a picturesque glass mural recalls its former function as a public bath. On the edge of the Dwasieden Forest is the old people's centre of the Workers' Welfare Association (AWO). It consists of a nursing home, and managed apartments with flats for the elderly and disabled, which were completed in 2005. In collaboration with artists, a sensory garden was created. In it there is a trail along which people with dementia can move freely without getting lost. The "Glass Station" (Glasbahnhof) and ferry terminal at the port of Sassnitz recall the over 100-year tradition of ferry services to Sweden and Northern Europe. Sassnitz's old town is near the town hall. In Karlstraße is the oldest house in Sassnitz, clearly visible from its blue and white exterior. Because of their architecture, Haus Seerose (Ringstraße 5) and Villa Hertha are worth seeing.