Hiddensee ˈhɪdənzeː is a carfree island in the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

, located west of Rügen

Rügen

Rügen is Germany's largest island. Located in the Baltic Sea, it is part of the Vorpommern-Rügen district of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.- Geography :Rügen is located off the north-eastern coast of Germany in the Baltic Sea...

 on the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 coast.

The island, located 54°33' north longitude 13°07' east, has about 1,300 inhabitants. It was a popular vacation destination for East German tourists during German Democratic Republic

German Democratic Republic

The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...

 (GDR) times and continues to attract tourists today with its natural beauty. It is the location of the University of Greifswald's ornithological station. Gerhart Hauptmann

Gerhart Hauptmann

Gerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.-Life and work:...

 and Walter Felsenstein

Walter Felsenstein

Walter Felsenstein was an Austrian theater and opera director.He was one of the most important exponents of textual accuracy, productions in which dramatic and musical values were exquisitely researched and balanced...

 are buried there.

Hiddensee is depicted in a painting of the same name by the German Expressionist

German Expressionism

German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...

 Walter Grammatté. It is currently shown in the Brücke Museum

Brücke Museum

The Brücke Museum in Berlin houses the world's largest collection of works by Die Brücke , an early 20th century expressionist movement.-Origins:...

 in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. In the 1920s, Hiddensee was a artists' colony and included Erich Heckel

Erich Heckel

Erich Heckel was a German painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the Die Brücke group which existed 1905-1913.-Biography:Heckel was born in Döbeln . His parents were born in Saxony...

, Käthe Kollwitz

Käthe Kollwitz

Käthe Kollwitz was a German painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose work offered an eloquent and often searing account of the human condition in the first half of the 20th century...

, Carl Zuckmayer

Carl Zuckmayer

Carl Zuckmayer was a German writer and playwright.-Biography:Born in Nackenheim in Rheinhessen, he was four years old when his family moved to Mainz. With the outbreak of World War I, he finished school with a facilitated "emergency"-Abitur and volunteered for military service...

, Lion Feuchtwanger

Lion Feuchtwanger

Lion Feuchtwanger was a German-Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht....

, Georg Grosz among others. Some of the important artists today are Harald Metzkes, Torsten Schlüter

Torsten Schlüter

Torsten Schlüter is a German painter, performance artist and author.1981 -1986 training in architecture and in artistic creation with successful university studies in architecture at Bauhausuniversity Weimar. Since 1986 going away from the architecture and alloning concentration than an authodiact...

 and Helge Leiberg.

An urban legend during the GDR said that in order to escape the hardships of communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 rule, the workers and farmers of Hiddensee wrote a letter to Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 requesting to be annexed by Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 (Hiddensee belonged to Swedish Pomerania 1648-1815). The legend reflects the humor typical of people in the GDR.

The island is also mentioned in Nina Hagen

Nina Hagen

Nina Hagen is a German singer and actress.-Early years:Hagen was born as Catharina Hagen in the former East Berlin, East Germany, the daughter of Hans Hagen , a scriptwriter, and Eva-Maria Hagen, an actress and singer...

's song Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen

Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen

"Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen" is a single by German punk artist Nina Hagen and the band Automobil. It was released in 1974.-Cover versions:...

.

External links

• Overnight on Hiddensee Island - slideshow by The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...