The closest larger towns on the mainland are Heiligenhafen (Saints’ Harbor) and Oldenburg in Holstein (founded as Starigard).

[2] As a part of Wagria, it was settled by the Slavic Lechitic tribe of Wagri in the Early Middle Ages.

[3] Puttgarden is also a Slavic name, deriving from pod gard, which means under the castle (on Rügen exists a village with the same etymological background, evolving into the modern form Putgarten).

Other Slavic-founded villages on Fehmarn are Bannesdorf, Dänschendorf, Gahlendorf, Gammendorf-Siedendorf, Gollendorf, Hinrichsdorf, Klausdorf, Kopendorf, Lemkendorf, Meeschendorf, Püttsee, Sahrensdorf, Schlagsdorf, Sulsdorf and Vitzdorf.

The villages of Bisdorf, Presen and Staberdorf are either Slavic-founded or founded by Germanic colonists from Holstein, Dithmarschen, Frisia, Lower Saxony and Denmark, who settled the island from around 1200 onwards.

From the Middle Ages till 1864 Fehmarn formed part of the Danish Duchy of Schleswig.

On 26 July 1932, the German Navy's training ship Niobe sank off the island during a sudden squall, with the loss of 69 lives.

On 29 June 2007, the Danish and German authorities gave the go-ahead for the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link tunnel project, planned for completion in 2028.

The coasts serve as resting places for migratory birds, and it is thus a popular location for ornithologists.

Fehmarn was the location of Jimi Hendrix's final concert, at the Open Air Love & Peace Festival, on 6 September 1970.