Heligoland (; , ; Heligolandic Frisian: , , Mooring Frisian: , ) is a small archipelago in the North Sea, administratively part of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The islands are located in the Heligoland Bight (part of the German Bight) in the southeastern corner of the North Sea and are the only German islands not in the vicinity of the mainland: they lie approximately by sea from Cuxhaven at the mouth of the River Elbe.
The islands were historically possessions of Denmark, then became possessions of the United Kingdom from 1807 to 1890. Since 1890, they have been part of Germany, although after World War II they along with the rest of Schleswig-Holstein were administered by the United Kingdom as part of the British occupation zone in Germany. British control of Heligoland lasted until 1952, when it was turned over to the control of West Germany.
Heligoland had a population of 1,127 at the end of 2016. In addition to German, the local population, who are ethnic Frisians, speak the Heligolandic dialect of the North Frisian language called . The islands are known for being the place where, in 1841, August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the lyrics to the "", which became the national anthem of Germany.
Name The island had no distinct name before the 19th century. It was often referred to by variants of the High German Heiligland ('holy land') and once even as the island of the Holy Virgin Ursula. Theodor Siebs summarised the critical discussion of the name in the 19th century in 1909 with the thesis that, based on the Frisian self-designation of the Heligolanders as Halunder, the island name meant 'high land' (similar to Hallig).Theodor Siebs: Helgoland und seine Sprache. Cuxhaven 1909, pp. 20 ff. In the following discussion by Jürgen Spanuth, Wolfgang Laur again proposed the original name of Heiligland.Wolfgang Laur: Fositesland und die Bernsteininsel. In: ZSHG, Vol. 7475 (1951), p. 425. The variant Helgoland, which has appeared since the 16th century, is said to have been created by scholars who Latinized a North Frisian form Helgeland, using it to refer to a legendary hero, Helgi.Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, Vol. 14, Artikel Helgoland. Berlin 1999.For example, in Heike Grahn-Hoek: Online Heiliges Land – Helgoland und seine früheren Namen. In: Uwe Ludwig, Thomas Schilp (eds.): Nomen et fraternitas. Festschrift für Dieter Geuenich zum 65. Geburtstag (Supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon des Germanischen Altertums). De Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-020238-0, p. 480. The discussion is complicated by a disagreement as to which of the listed names really refers to the island of Helgoland, and by a desire for the island still to be seen as holy today.For example: Roter Flint und Heiliges Land. Helgoland zwischen Vorgeschichte und Mittelalter. Neumünster 2009, p. 70.
Geography
Heligoland is located off the German coastline and consists of two islands: the populated triangular main island () to the west, and the ('dune', Heligolandic: ) to the east. Heligoland generally refers to the former island. is somewhat smaller at , lower, and surrounded by sand beaches. It is not permanently inhabited, but is today the location of Heligoland's airfield.
The main island is commonly divided into the ('Lower Land', Heligolandic: ) at sea level (to the right on the photograph, where the harbour is located), the ('Upper Land', Heligolandic: ) consisting of the plateau visible in the photographs, and the ('Middle Land') between them on one side of the island. The came into being in 1947 as a result of explosions detonated by the British Royal Navy (the so-called "Big Bang"; see below).
The main island also features small beaches in the north and the south and drops to the sea high in the north, west and southwest. In the latter, the ground continues to drop underwater to a depth of below sea level. Heligoland's most famous landmark is the ('Long Anna' or 'Tall Anna'), a free-standing rock column (or stack), high, found northwest of the island proper.
The two islands were connected until 1720 when the natural connection was destroyed by a storm flood. The highest point is on the main island, reaching above sea level.
Although culturally and geographically closer to North Frisia in the German district of , the two islands are part of the district of Pinneberg in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. The main island has a good harbour and is frequented mostly by sailing yachts.
History
The German Bight and the area around the island are known to have been inhabited since prehistoric times. Flint tools have been recovered from the bottom of the sea surrounding Heligoland. On the Oberland, prehistoric burial mounds were visible until the late 19th century, and excavations showed skeletons and artefacts. Moreover, prehistoric copper plates have been found under water near the island; those plates were almost certainly made on the Oberland.
In 697, Radbod, the last Frisian king, retreated to the then-single island after his defeat by the Franks – or so it is written in the Life of Willebrord by Alcuin. By 1231, the island was listed as the property of the Danish king Valdemar II. Archaeological findings from the 12th to 14th centuries suggest that copper ore was processed on the island.
There is a general understanding that the name "Heligoland" means "Holy Land" (compare modern Dutch and German heilig, "holy").Heligoland, Past and Present, p. 39, Alex Ritsema In the course of the centuries several alternative theories have been proposed to explain the name, from a Danish king Heligo to a Frisian word, , meaning "salt marsh island". The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica suggests Hallaglun, or Halligland, i.e. "land of banks, which cover and uncover".
Traditional economic activities included fishing, hunting birds and seals, wrecking and – very important for many overseas powers – piloting overseas ships into the harbours of Hanseatic League cities such as Bremen and Hamburg. In some periods Heligoland was an excellent base point for huge herring catches. Until 1714 ownership switched several times between Denmark–Norway and the Duchy of Schleswig, with one period of control by Hamburg. In August 1714, it was conquered by Denmark–Norway, and it remained Danish until 1807.Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition, Micropaedia Volume IV, page 999,
19th century
On 11 September 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, brought to the Admiralty the despatches from Admiral Thomas Macnamara Russell announcing Heligoland's capitulation to the British. Heligoland became a centre of resistance and intrigue against Napoleon. Denmark then ceded Heligoland to George III of the United Kingdom by the Treaty of Kiel (14 January 1814). Thousands of Germans came to Britain and joined the King's German Legion via Heligoland.
The British annexation of Heligoland was ratified by the Treaty of Paris signed on 30 May 1814, as part of a number of territorial reallocations following the abdication of Napoleon as Emperor of the French.
The prime reason at the time for Britain's retention of a small and seemingly worthless acquisition was to restrict any future French naval aggression against the Scandinavian or German states.Ashley Cooper, page 40 History Today January 2014 In the event, no effort was made during the period of British administration to make use of the islands for military purposes, partly for financial reasons but principally because the Royal Navy considered Heligoland to be too exposed as a forward base.Ashley Cooper, page 41 History Today January 2014
In 1826, Heligoland became a seaside spa and soon turned into a popular tourist resort for the European upper class. The island attracted artists and writers, especially from Germany and Austria who apparently enjoyed the comparatively liberal atmosphere, including Heinrich Heine and August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben. More vitally it was a refuge for revolutionaries of the 1830s and the 1848 German revolution.
As related in The Leisure Hour, it was "a land where there are no bankers, no lawyers, and no crime; where all gratuities are strictly forbidden, the landladies are all honest and the boatmen take no tips", while The English Illustrated Magazine provided a description in the most glowing terms: "No one should go there who cannot be content with the charms of brilliant light, of ever-changing atmospheric effects, of a land free from the countless discomforts of a large and busy population, and of an air that tastes like draughts of life itself."
Britain ceded the islands to Germany in 1890 in the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty. The newly unified Germany was concerned about a foreign power controlling land from which it could command the western entrance to the militarily-important Kiel Canal, then under construction along with other naval installations in the area and thus traded for it. A "grandfathering"/optant approach prevented the inhabitants of the islands from forfeiting advantages because of this imposed change of status.
Heligoland has an important place in the history of the study of ornithology, and especially the understanding of bird migration. The book Heligoland, an Ornithological Observatory by Heinrich Gätke, published in German in 1890 and in English in 1895, described an astonishing array of migrant birds on the island and was a major influence on future studies of bird migration.
In 1892, the Biological Station of Helgoland was founded by phycologist Paul Kuckuck, a student of Johannes Reinke (leading marine phycologist).
20th century Under the German Empire, the islands became a major naval base, and during the First World War the civilian population was evacuated to the mainland. The island was fortified with concrete gun emplacements along its cliffs similar to the Rock of Gibraltar. Island defences included 364 mounted guns including 142 disappearing guns overlooking shipping channels defended with ten rows of naval mines. The first naval engagement of the war, the Battle of Heligoland Bight, was fought nearby in the first month of the war. The islanders returned in 1918, but during the Nazi era the naval base was reactivated.
Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) first formulated the equation underlying his theory of quantum mechanics while on Heligoland in the 1920s. While a student of Arnold Sommerfeld at Munich, Heisenberg first met the Danish physicist Niels Bohr in 1922 at the Bohr Festival, Göttingen. He and Bohr went for long hikes in the mountains and discussed the failure of existing theories to account for the new experimental results on the quantum structure of matter. Following these discussions, Heisenberg plunged into several months of intensive theoretical research but met with continual frustration. Finally, suffering from a severe attack of hay fever that his aspirin and cocaine treatment was failing to alleviate, he retreated to the treeless (and pollenless) island of Heligoland in the summer of 1925. There he conceived the basis of the quantum theory.
In 1937, construction began on a major reclamation project () intended to expand existing naval facilities and restore the island to its pre-1629 dimensions, restoring large areas which had been eroded by the sea. The project was largely abandoned after the start of World War II and was never completed.
World War II The area was the setting of the aerial Battle of the Heligoland Bight in 1939, a result of Royal Air Force bombing raids on Kriegsmarine warships in the area. The waters surrounding the island were frequently mined by Allied aircraft.