The first German North Sea holiday resort welcomes its first visitors
Word spread in the 1750s of the positive effects on respiratory diseases of the clean and pollen-free air prevailing at sea coasts. After the first seaside resorts had been established in England and France, the German naturalist and Enlightenment philosopher Georg Christoph Lichtenberg thought that Germany needed a similar holiday destination. The Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was the quickest to respond to his suggestion, opening the seaside resort of Heiligendamm on the Baltic Sea in 1793.
On 17th May 1794, the local authorities in Aurich approved an application to establish a private seaside resort in the Principality of East Frisia. A report written by its medical officer, himself a former student of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, recommended the island of Norderney as the location and sought permission from the Prussian King Frederick William II. Norderney was opened as the first beach resort on the German stretch of the North Sea in 1797.
About the Deutschlandmuseum
An immersive and innovative experience museum about 2000 years of German history
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