Binz

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 km2. It is part of the Schmachter See and Fangerien Nature Reserve. The lake has its origins in the Ice Age. At the end of the glacial period there was an ice front here. Today the lake has an area of about 118 hectares. Before about 14,000 years ago the lake, which was then still part of the Baltic Sea, had a depth of up to 15 metres. About 5,000 years ago the waterbody was cut off from the Baltic by the bar of the Schmale Heide. Its only link to the Baltic is the drainage ditch of the Ahlbeck stream. As a result of natural silting-up processes it is today a shallow lake. In the centre it has a depth of only one to two metres. In addition the lake has lost a lot of its former area. Originally it purportedly reached as far south as Nistelitz. The name of the lake comes from the settlement of Schmacht to the southwest, but which no longer lies on the lake shore. The Ahlbeck, which drains the lake into the Baltic Sea, was canalised in the 1950s. The mouth of the pipe or ditch is located on the beach of Binzer Strand and is marked by an information sign. A variety of animal and plant species live on the lake and, including 40 species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. For example, the bittern reed warbler greylag goose, goosander, smew white-tailed eagle and osprey occur here. The shores of the lake are mainly covered in beech woods. At the foot of the slopes are seepage springs. Close to the lake are alder carrs and marshes. The shore itself is mainly fringed by reeds and quaking bog vegetation. At the northern end the lake is the village of Binz. Here, there is a promenade and the "Park of Senses" (Park der Sinne).

Ostseebad Binz (German: Bahnhof Ostseebad Binz) is a terminus railway station in the town of Binz, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The station lies at the end of the Lietzow-Binz railway and was opened in 1939. The train services are operated by Deutsche Bahn Fernverkehr and Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn GmbH.

The Schmachter See and Fangerien Nature Reserve (German: Naturschutzgebiet Schmachter See und Fangerien) is a nature reserve in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and covers an area of 262 hectares. It was placed under conservation protection on 7 December 1994 with the goal of preserving and cultivating a section of the East Rügen hill country together with a silted lake and adjacent wet meadows, bogs and woods. The lake of Schmachter See lies immediately southwest of Binz. The village of Schmacht that lent the lake its name lies near the western shore of the lake. The nature reserve borders to the south on the parish of Serams and the B 196 federal road. The Fangerien is a beech wood on the northwestern shore of the lake. The condition of the woods is graded as "good". The poor state of the Schmachter See was improved as part of a major conservation project, the East Rügen Bodden Country (Ostrügensche Boddenlandschaft), which implemented re-naturalisation measures.

The Rügen narrow-gauge railway (German: Rügensche Bäderbahn, formerly Rügensche Kleinbahn or RüKB) – nicknamed Rasender Roland ("Raging Roland") – is a steam-powered narrow-gauge railway that runs from Putbus by way of Binz, Sellin, and Baabe to Göhren on the island of Rügen off the Baltic Coast in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Since 2008, it has been run by the Eisenbahn-Bau- und Betriebsgesellschaft Pressnitztalbahn mbH. There is an interchange with the island's Deutsche Bahn mainline network via the Veolia-run OLA railways. The Rasender Roland is one of the island's tourist attractions. It serves several holiday destinations, mainly the bathing resorts in Rügen's southeast. The railway runs regularly along a stretch of 24 km (14.5 mi.) of track with historic steam locomotives and coaches, some of which are almost a hundred years old. Unlike the Deutsche Bahn national system which uses 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge, Rasender Roland uses the narrow gauge of 750 mm (2 ft 5+1⁄2 in). The maximum speed is 30 kilometres per hour (19 mph).

Granitz Hunting Lodge (German: Jagdschloss Granitz) 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.

The Southeast Rügen Biosphere Reserve (German: Biosphärenreservat Südost-Rügen) is a biosphere reserve in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, which covers the southeastern part of the island of Rügen (including Granitz and Mönchgut), the lagoon of Rügischer Bodden between Putbus and Thiessow, the outer coast between Thiessow and Binz and the island of Vilm. In the biosphere reserve all the classic landscape and coastal features of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern littoral are found within one small area. The land is deeply indented here by the sea. One the one hand, peninsulas and coastal headlands are linked by narrow strips of land, on the other side they are separated by lagoons known as boddens and open bays called Wieken locally. There are fine-sanded beaches and rugged cliffed coastlines, at the foot of which are impressive rocky beaches. Broad belts of reed girdle the shores. Beech woods or poor grasslands are found on the sites of terminal moraines and meadows and pastures in the depressions formed after the Ice Ages. Cultural features include megalithic tombs of the New Stone Age, Bronze Age tumuli, medieval churches and village layouts, and the resort architecture of the Modern Era. It was made a biosphere reserve in 1990 as part of the GDR's national park programme. Area: 235 km2 Its variety of species includes its: great importance as a rest and breeding area for migratory birds, mainly various species of goose (greylag, bean and greater white-fronted geese) bee species: e. g. furry, apex-furrowed and cone bees; cuckoo and social wasps. colonies of seagrass, red and green algae in the nearshore areas of the Bay of Greifswald that form spawning grounds for Baltic Sea herring.The biosphere reserve has several core zones or total reserves. These include the Schwarzer See in the Granitz as well as the islands of Vilm and parts of the Mönchgut and Zicker peninsulas.

Prora Ost (German: Bahnhof Prora Ost) is a railway station in the town of Prora, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The station lies on the Lietzow-Binz railway. The train services are operated by Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn GmbH.

The Lancken-Granitz dolmens are a group of seven megalith tombs in the Lancken-Granitz municipality on Rügen, northern Germany. Erected during the middle Neolithic, when they were used by the Funnelbeaker culture, at least some were in use until the early Bronze Age. Three of them are encircled by solitary rocks forming either rectangles or a stone circle, one has a solitary "guardian stone" on its eastern side. The dolmens were constructed from glacial erratic boulders and red sandstone. In part subdivided into up to four compartments as common for the region, one dolmen showed a subdivision into six such compartments, which is an unusually high number. When the tombs were archaeologically assessed in 1969, Stone and Bronze Age funerary goods were retrieved, including flint hatches, stone axes, amber pearls, bronze needles and necklaces as well as an abundance of arrowheads and pottery.

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 Freude or KdF) project. It consisted of eight identical buildings and was 4.5 km (2.8 mi) in length parallel to the beach, with the surviving structures stretching 3.0 km (1.9 mi). Although the buildings were planned as a holiday resort, construction was not completed and they were not used for this purpose. Prora, as it was known, was however used largely by the Nazi Party for propaganda, with the supposed strength and power displayed in the construction effort of the complex likened by the party to that of themselves. After World War II, the complex found various military uses, first by the Soviet Army, then by the East German Volksarmee, and then by the German Bundeswehr. Today it houses a large youth hostel, a hotel and holiday apartments. The complex has a formal heritage listing as a particularly striking example of Nazi architecture.

Lancken-Granitz is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Near the villages of Lancken and Burtevitz are several megalith tombs from the Neolithic. The Lancken-Granitz municipality consists of the following villages: Lancken-Granitz Blieschow Burtevitz Dummertevitz Garftitz Gobbin Neu Reddevitz Preetz (Rügen) Zarnekow

The Oldtimer Museum Rügen (formerly the Rügen Railway and Technology Museum—Eisenbahn & Technik Museum Rügen or ETM) is a German railway museum based on the Baltic Sea island resort of Rügen in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It was established in 1994 and is housed in the museum section of the Nazi-built Kraft durch Freude ('strength through joy') building complex at Prora which is a protected monument. In the vicinity of the station, in a 4000 m² hall and in the open air, the following may be visited: Locomotives and other exhibits, especially those of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, but also other railway administrations: DRG Class 03 – no. 03 193 with streamlining made at the Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk Meiningen. The locomotive is now displayed with running number 03 002 DR Class 23.10 – no. 23 1021 (later 35 1021-1) DRG Class 44 – no. 44 397 (later 44 0397-8 when oil-fired, 44 2397-6 when coal-fired) DR Class 50.35-37 – no. 50 3703 (rebuilt from 50 877) DR Class 52.80 – no. 52 8190-2 (rebuilt from 52 2887) ÖBB Class 1018 – no. 1018.04 as E18 208 SDZ class P36 - Soviet steam locomotive P36-123 Culemeyer heavy trailer with a Kaelble tractor Steam-driven rotary snow plough Cars (not just East German makes) Lorries Fire engines, e.g. by Magirus Deutz and IFA Tractors

The successful Landing on Groß Stresow by Prussian, Danish and Saxon troops took place on 15 November 1715 on the island of Rügen, Germany during the Great Northern War. The landing was followed with cavalry assaults from the Swedish defences on the island, commanded by Charles XII king of Sweden who despite the huge numerical disadvantage of - one up against five - chose to attack the fortified camp. The Swedes managed to get past the "Cheval de frise" and break through, but were then rapidly repulsed and routed after taking heavy casualties.The battle had lasted for almost an hour and Charles, who got his horse shot dead under him during the fight, later said: "Is there no god beside me?". The attack was supposed to work like a needle-manoeuvre "concentrate the full attack at one point, break through and then destroy the defences from the inside" used by the Swedes fifteen years earlier in the battle of Narva, where they were greatly successful and victorious.About five hundred Swedes were either dead or wounded along with all their artillery captured. The allied casualties were: 43 dead and 121 wounded Danes 36 Saxons and 49 Prussians dead or wounded. This was, however, probably the first notable Swedish field-battle defeat led directly by Charles XII. With the landing secured the alliance continued fighting off the last remaining Swedes on the island of Rügen and later joined up with the troops laying siege to Stralsund.