Binz

Binz first appears in 1318, as Byntze, in a tax record for the County of Streu; it was part of the Principality of Rügen and passed to Pomerania after 1326, to Swedish Pomerania in 1648 and to Prussia in 1815. For most of that time it was a small fishing and farming village around what are now Bahnhofstraße and Rabenstraße, belonging to the church parish of Zirkow. The first hint of its future came around 1830, when guests of the Prince of Putbus bathed at the outflow of the Schmachter See.

Sea bathing came into fashion around 1875, and a decade later Binz became an official resort. The promenade, a spa house, the pier and a narrow-gauge railway from Putbus followed by 1895, and instead of large hotels builders put up lodging houses in the villa style known as resort architecture, often named after the builder's wife. Storms and fire set the resort back — the pier was wrecked on New Year's Eve 1905 and the spa house burned in 1906 — and in 1912 part of the rebuilt pier collapsed, killing at least 16 people; the German Lifeguard Association was founded the following year.

In 1937 work began on Prora, the Strength Through Joy resort meant to be the largest in Europe; it was never finished and became barracks after the war. Under East Germany, the 1953 'Action Rose' seized private hotels and guesthouses and handed them to the trade unions' holiday service, and prefabricated housing estates were built to the north and west. After 1990 many villas were returned to their former owners, the town was restored, and a new 370-metre pier opened in 1994.

The look of Binz is its culture. Its white villas, with balconies, loggias and decorative woodwork, are among the best-kept examples of Bäderarchitektur, the resort style of the Baltic coast, and the town marks them with a week devoted to resort architecture. Concrete modernism has its own landmark on the beach: the curved shell of the lifeguard station built in 1981 by Ulrich Müther, now a place to get married.

Seaside customs here go back more than a century. The hooded wicker Strandkorb, invented by a Rostock basket-maker in 1882, fills the beach in summer, and nude bathing — FKK, popular in East German times — keeps its own marked section of the sand. Families, dog owners and naturists each have their part of the beach. The resort's calendar is built around visitors: a summer cultural programme, the KulturSommer, regular summer concerts in the Protestant church of 1913, and festivals of blues music, sand sculpture and wine, with a medieval market at the Granitz hunting lodge.

Prora gives the town a more sombre side. The vast block built for the Nazi leisure organisation, later home to East German soldiers, has been partly converted into flats, a hotel and one of Germany's largest youth hostels, while the documentation centre at its southern end explains its history.

The municipality of Ostseebad Binz is made up of Binz itself, Jagdschloss Granitz and Prora, and its economy is built mainly on tourism. The year runs at two speeds: from spring to autumn the restaurants, holiday flats and beach-chair hirers are busy, and in winter many close. The spa administration organises concerts and other events alongside local clubs and institutions. Binz belonged to the district of Rügen until 2011 and is now part of Vorpommern-Rügen, whose seat is Stralsund.

That divide shapes local life. After 1990 many villas went back to their former owners, and the town was restored and modernised. East German housing estates still stand on the north and west edges of town, and refurbished apartments in Prora's converted blocks have sold for as much as €700,000 each.

Transport follows the season too: buses towards Göhren run every 15 minutes at times in the summer half of the year, and the Rasender Roland steam trains double as local transport for the resorts of south-east Rügen.

Eating in Binz is seaside eating. The Fischbrötchen, the fish roll of northern Germany, is sold from stands and take-aways: a bread roll filled with Bismarck or soused herring, fried herring, rollmops, smoked mackerel or fried cod, with fresh or dried onions, pickles or remoulade. Bismarck herring is the German name for pickled herring, cured first in salt and then in a solution of vinegar, salt and sugar with onions and spices. Many of the resort's restaurants line Hauptstraße and the Strandpromenade.

Rote Grütze, a sweet pudding of red berries from Denmark and northern Germany, is a common dessert. The Rügener Badejunge, a camembert named after the island, was made by the dairy at Bergen auf Rügen from 1953 until 2019; it is now produced in Altenburg in Thuringia but keeps its island name.

Beer from the region includes the Störtebeker and Stralsunder brands of Stralsund's Störtebeker brewery, founded in 1827.