Binz Occupation
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Binz is the largest
seaside resort A seaside resort is a city, resort town, town, village, or hotel that serves as a Resort, vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of an official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requi ...
city on the
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
island of
Rügen Rügen (; Rani: ''Rȯjana'', ''Rāna''; , ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The "gateway" to Rügen island is the Hanseatic ci ...
. It is situated between the bay of Prorer Wiek and the ''Schmachter See'' (a lake) in the southeast of the island. To the north of Binz stretches the
Schmale Heide The Schmale Heide (literally "Narrow Heath") is a 9.5-kilometre-long and roughly 2-kilometre-wide bar between the Baltic seaside resort of Binz and the village of Neu Mukran near Sassnitz on the German island of Rügen. It lies in the municipalit ...
(the "narrow heath"), a tongue of land which joins the
Muttland Muttland comprises the main section of the German island of Rügen Rügen (; Rani: ''Rȯjana'', ''Rāna''; , ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg- ...
region of Rügen to the
Jasmund Jasmund is a peninsula of the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is connected to the Wittow peninsula and to the Muttland main section of Rügen by the narrow land bridges Schaabe and Schmale Heide, respectively. Sassnitz ...
peninsula. The land to the south and east of Binz is hilly, reaching a height of over 100 metres above sea level. Binz is known for its well-kept historical
resort architecture Resort architecture () is an architectural Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, plan ...
and natural scenery, close to the
Jasmund National Park The Jasmund National Park ( German: ''Nationalpark Jasmund'') is a nature reserve on the Jasmund peninsula, in the northeast of Rügen island in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is famous for containing the largest Rügen chalk cliffs in Germ ...
and its chalk cliffs. Its Polish name is ''Bińce'', as recorded and documented in 1937.


Geography


Location

Binz lies on the eastern coast of the island of
Rügen Rügen (; Rani: ''Rȯjana'', ''Rāna''; , ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The "gateway" to Rügen island is the Hanseatic ci ...
between the bay of Prorer Wiek and the lake of
Schmachter See Schmachter See is a lake near Binz on the German Baltic Sea island of Rügen. It lies within the county of Vorpommern-Rügen in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It has an elevation of 1.1 metres above sea level and its surface area is 1.18  ...
. North of Binz is the
Schmale Heide The Schmale Heide (literally "Narrow Heath") is a 9.5-kilometre-long and roughly 2-kilometre-wide bar between the Baltic seaside resort of Binz and the village of Neu Mukran near Sassnitz on the German island of Rügen. It lies in the municipalit ...
, a neck of land that links the
Muttland Muttland comprises the main section of the German island of Rügen Rügen (; Rani: ''Rȯjana'', ''Rāna''; , ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg- ...
– Rügen's central region – with the peninsula of
Jasmund Jasmund is a peninsula of the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is connected to the Wittow peninsula and to the Muttland main section of Rügen by the narrow land bridges Schaabe and Schmale Heide, respectively. Sassnitz ...
. East and south of the municipality, the land is rolling, in the southeast, in the
Granitz The Granitz is a wooded ridge in the southeast of Germany's largest island, Rügen, between the Baltic Sea resorts of Binz and Sellin. The woods cover an area of 982 hectares and are designated as a nature reserve. Since 1991 they have been ...
, the land climbs to just over . The resort of
Prora The Colossus of Prora, commonly known as simply "Prora", is a building complex in the municipality of Binz on the island of Rügen, Germany. It was built by Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1939 as part of the Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch ...
belongs to Binz.


Climate

The annual
precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...
is 611 mm and is relatively low, falling within the lowest quarter of values within Germany. At 23% of the weather stations of the
German Met Office The () or DWD for short, is the German Meteorological Service, based in Offenbach am Main, Germany, which monitors weather and meteorological conditions over Germany and provides weather services for the general public and for nautical, aviati ...
lower values are recorded. The driest month is February, the most rain falls in July. In July 1.9 times as much precipitation falls as in February. Precipitation varies very little and is very evenly spread throughout the year. At only 10% of weather stations are lower seasonal variations recorded.


History


Fishing and farming village

In 1318 the places was mentioned for the first time, as ''Byntze '', in a tax collection document for the County of Streu (''Grafschaft Streu''). The heart of the 250pxsettlement was the middle of the present ''Bahnhofstraße'' and ''Rabenstraße''. In addition there were the farmsteads of Granitz-Hof and Aalbeck. The church village and centre of the
parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...
was Zirkow. A first sign of its subsequent importance as a Baltic Sea resort arose as early as around 1830, when guests of the Prince of
Putbus Putbus () is a town on the southeastern coast of the island of Rügen, in the county of Vorpommern-Rügen in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, close to the Baltic Sea. The town has 4,741 inhabitants and is a significant tourist destinat ...
bathed at the mouth of the ''Ahlbeck'' (the outflow of the Schmachter See). In 1835 a one-classroom school was established. Around 1850 Binz farmers purchased the land hitherto rented to them by the Prince of Putbus. Until 1326 the village was part of the
Principality of Rügen The Principality of Rügen was a Medieval Denmark, Danish principality, formerly a duchy, consisting of the island of Rügen and the adjacent mainland from 1168 until 1325. It was governed by a local dynasty of princes of the ''Wizlawiden'' (''Hou ...
and thereafter of the
Duchy of Pomerania The Duchy of Pomerania (; ; Latin: ''Ducatus Pomeraniae'') was a duchy in Pomerania on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, ruled by dukes of the House of Pomerania (''Griffins''). The country existed in the Middle Ages between years 1121–11 ...
. With the
Treaty of Westphalia The Peace of Westphalia (, ) is the collective name for two Peace treaty, peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. They ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and brought peace to the Holy R ...
of 1648 Rügen, and hence Binz, became part of
Swedish Pomerania Swedish Pomerania (; ) was a dominions of Sweden, dominion under the Sweden, Swedish Crown from 1630 to 1815 on what is now the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of Germany and Poland. Following the Polish-Swedish War, Polish War and the Thirty Years' War ...
. In 1815 Binz became part of
New Western Pomerania New Western Pomerania or New Hither Pomerania ( or ''Neu-Vorpommern'') was the part of Western Pomerania that passed to Prussia from Sweden under the terms of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The territory of New Western Pomerania corresponded to ...
within the
Prussian Province of Pomerania Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern r ...
. From 1818 to 4 September 2011 Binz belonged, apart from a short interruption (1952–1955
Kreis Putbus Kreis Putbus (district of Putbus) was a ''Landkreis, Kreis'' on the island of Rügen in the district of Bezirk Rostock in East Germany from 1952 to 1955. History After the end of the Second World War the Landkreis Rügen, shire county of Rügen ...
) to the county of
Rügen Rügen (; Rani: ''Rȯjana'', ''Rāna''; , ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The "gateway" to Rügen island is the Hanseatic ci ...
.


Development as a Baltic Sea resort

Around 1875, bathing in the sea came into vogue. The first guests arrived in the small town of Binz, took a liking to it, and recommended it to others. That same year the first road was built connecting the village to the beach (''Putbuser Straße''). Ten years later, Binz officially became a
bathing resort A seaside resort is a city, resort town, town, village, or hotel that serves as a Resort, vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of an official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requi ...
, which meant that building took off: the beach promenade, the pier, the spa house (''Kurhaus''), a new network of paths and a narrow-gauge railway connection were built. Around 1870, 80 bathers were counted in one year. No large hotels were built in Binz and other resorts on the Baltic coast in the late 19th century; instead lodging houses in a villa style were built in a style known as
resort architecture Resort architecture () is an architectural Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, plan ...
. They were given names associated with the ''
Zeitgeist In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a ''Zeitgeist'' (; ; capitalized in German) is an invisible agent, force, or daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. The term is usually associated with Georg W. F ...
'': nationalistic names like "Germania" or names of family members – often the first name of the wife of the builder. In 1876, the first hotel was built. In 1880, Wilhelm Klünder had the first hotel near the beach built: the appropriately named ''Strandhotel''. In 1888, the Binz Baltic Sea Resort Company (''Aktiengesellschaft Ostseebad Binz'') was founded, which in 1890 opened the first spa house, the '' Kurhaus Binz'' and went bust in 1891. In 1892 Binz was elevated to the status of an independent rural municipality. Around 1896, the ''Bräunlich'' shipping company linked the settlements of Stettin, Binz and Sassnitz. This was followed by a building boom. In 1893 the first spa house and the ''Kaiserhof'' were built. In 1895, the construction of the Rügen Light Railway from Putbus to Binz followed, as well as the opening of the beach promenade. In 1898, the first post office was built (''Haus Kliesow, Hauptstraße''). On the beach separate swimming pools were created for men and women. In 1902, a 600-metre-long
pier A pier is a raised structure that rises above a body of water and usually juts out from its shore, typically supported by piling, piles or column, pillars, and provides above-water access to offshore areas. Frequent pier uses include fishing, b ...
was built. Other infrastructure projects included the construction of a drinking water supply and sanitation (1903) and the a power station (''Jasmunder Straße''). Two setbacks were the destruction of the pier by a storm on New Year's Eve in 1905 and the burning down of the spa house in 1906. After the reconstruction of the pier in 1908, a new spa house was built. At the same time a family swimming pool was created. In 1912 a section of the pier collapsed, killing 17 people. Then in 1913 in Leipzig, the German Lifeguard Association was established. In 1913 the
Protestant church Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes justification of sinners through faith alone, the teaching that salvation comes by unmerited divine grace, the priesthood of all believers, and the Bible as the sole infallible sourc ...
was consecrated and, in 1928, the new post office building opened (''Zeppelinstraße''). Gradually the bathing areas on the beach were closed. In 1922 the men's swimming pool was demolished and finally, in 1932, the family swimming pool followed suit.


National Socialist era

In 1937 the construction of the KdF ("Strength Through Joy") resort at
Prora The Colossus of Prora, commonly known as simply "Prora", is a building complex in the municipality of Binz on the island of Rügen, Germany. It was built by Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1939 as part of the Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch ...
began. It was planned to be Europe's largest seaside resort. The
standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...
Ostseebad Binz railway station was constructed in 1938, and the line from Binz to the junction at
Lietzow Lietzow is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the nor ...
was opened in 1939. During the winter of 1942 the pier was again destroyed, this time by ice.


GDR era

In 1950, the construction of the Prora complex was completed, and the buildings were used as barracks for the
Volkspolizei The (DVP, German for "German People's Police"), commonly known as the or VoPo, was the national uniformed police force of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1945 to 1990. The Volkspolizei was a highly- centralized agency re ...
(People's Police). Later, they were used to house the
Nationale Volksarmee The National People's Army (, ; NVA ) were the armed forces of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) from 1956 until 1990. The NVA was organized into four branches: the (Ground Forces), the (Navy), the (Air Force) and the (Border Troops). Th ...
(National People's Army). The railway line between Binz and Lietzow was re-opened in 1952. In 1953, the government of the
German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
(GDR), in which Binz was then situated, initiated "Action Rose". This was the name of the programme under which privately owned hotels, and guest houses were taken into social ownership. These businesses were transferred to the
FDGB The Free German Trade Union Federation ( or ''FDGB'') was the sole national trade union centre of the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) which existed from 1946 to 1990. As a mass organisation of the GDR, nominally representing al ...
(the federal body of the
East German East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...
trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
s), and included in their program of cheap holidays for union members. After 1972, more holiday centres were built for the FDGB. Between the 1950s and 1985 estates of flats typical of the GDR (''
Plattenbau A large-panel-system building is a building constructed of large, prefabricated concrete slabs. Such buildings are often found in housing developments. Although large-panel-system buildings are often considered to be typical of Eastern Bloc c ...
'') were built both to the north and west of the town.


Post-1990

Following the
reunification of Germany German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic and the integration of i ...
, Binz underwent substantial change. Many of the villas were returned to their previous owners, and the town was restored and modernised. The former FDGB holiday centres were privatised and renovated. In 1994, a new pier, 370 metres long, was opened.


Points of interest

Apart from the numerous early 20th-century hotels and villas in the town centre and along the seaside promenade, its main attractions are its 370-metre-long pier, the mid-19th-century
Granitz Hunting Lodge Granitz Hunting Lodge () is located on the German island of Rügen in the vicinity of the seaside resort of Binz. With over 200,000 visitors per year it is the most popular castle or ''schloss'' in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.Ostsee-Zeitung, 12 Apri ...
and the enormous
Prora The Colossus of Prora, commonly known as simply "Prora", is a building complex in the municipality of Binz on the island of Rügen, Germany. It was built by Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1939 as part of the Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch ...
complex just north of the town.


Economy and infrastructure

Ostseebad Binz railway station stands at the end of the standard gauge
Deutsche Bahn (, ; abbreviated as DB or DB AG ) is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). DB was fou ...
railway line from
Stralsund Stralsund (; Swedish language, Swedish: ''Strålsund''), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Stralsund (German language, German: ''Hansestadt Stralsund''), is the fifth-largest city in the northeastern German federal state of Mecklen ...
via
Bergen auf Rügen Bergen auf Rügen is the capital of the former district of Rügen in the middle of the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. Since 1 January 2005, Bergen has moreover been the administrative seat of the '' Amt'' of Bergen au ...
. Binz is also linked to the nearby towns of Putbus,
Sellin Sellin is a municipality on the Island of Rügen, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. History First mentions of Sellin date to 1295. From 1880 on, the town gained importance as a Baltic Sea spa town. After the '' Wende'' in 1989, the building ...
,
Baabe Baabe () is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Sights * ''Baaber Bollwerk'' viewing point * Thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water re ...
and Göhren by the narrow gauge
steam railway A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomoti ...
the Rügensche Bäderbahn, known locally as Rasender Roland.


Notable people


Sons and daughters of the town

* Monika Nelson-Schaal (born 1945), politician (SPD) * Gudrun Nelson-Schnirch (born 1945), Member of the Landtag (CDU) * Peter-Michael Diestel (born 1952), lawyer and politician (DSU, CDU)


Personalities who have worked in Binz

* Wolfgang Schnur (1944-2016), German politician, worked as a lawyer in Binz between 1973 and 1978 with Alex Nelson.


Gallery/Photos

Image:Baederarchitektur-Binz 1658.jpg, Typical
Resort architecture Resort architecture () is an architectural Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, plan ...
of Binz Image:Seebrücke in Binz.jpg, View from the Binz pier Image:Hauptstraße Binz.jpg, Shopping street Image:Evangelische Kirche in Binz.JPG, Protestant church Image:Ruegen 038.jpg, Rasender Roland Image:Binz-Rettungsstation-2004.jpg, Rescue tower Image:Hauptstraße Binz auf Rügen.jpg, Main street


References


External links

* * {{Authority control Seaside resorts in Germany Towns and villages on Rügen Populated coastal places in Germany (Baltic Sea)