Sassnitz is a well-known seaside resort and port town, and is a gateway to the nearby Jasmund National Park with its unique chalk cliffs.

The decommissioned British submarine HMS Otus was purchased by a German entrepreneur and towed to Sassnitz to be a floating museum.

The Sassnitz area is most popular for its famous chalk rocks (Kreidefelsen), which inspired artists like Caspar David Friedrich.

Its formation began with the end of the Weichselian glaciation about 12,000 years ago, when the ice sheet left behind there a Young Moraine landscape.

As a result of thawing inland ice the underlying land and rose and hollows were filled with water.

As a result of the erosive action of waves and currents created, steep shores were formed that still characterise the landscape.

As early as 1824, it is recorded that the family of the Berlin theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher went on a beach holiday to Sassnitz.

Theodor Fontane, in his book Effi Briest, named her lover, Major von Crampas, after the fishing village on Rügen.

In 1984, a new port was built in the subdistrict of Mukran for the railway ferry between East Germany and the Soviet Union.

The white stripe take up five ninths of the height and is emblazoned in the centre with the town's coat of arms.

The "glass station" has lost its function as a result of the expansion of the new Sassnitz Ferry Port and today houses an exhibition and events hall as well as the Museum for Underwaterarchaeology.

The municipal and evangelical church community centre at Gerhart-Hauptmann-Ring 50, founded in February 2000 as a meeting place for older people, has now merged with various other projects, such as the "Kiek in" cafe, the Spinnstube, the Klönstube of CJD Garz, the Klönclub, the clothes market, various self-help groups (Alcoholics Anonymous, etc.

The chalk is not just used to manufacture gypsum, but is also used by power stations for their filtration plants, due to its high quality.

The company, which was modernised after Germany's reunification, employs around 200 people and produces a large range of tinned fish.

This location has the shortest sea links from Germany to Sweden, Denmark (Bornholm), Finland, Russian and the Baltic states.

The port lies on the bay of Prorer Wiek immediately on the open sea and it is therefore easy for ships to dock here.

Water depths of 10.50 metres (34.4 ft) make the port accessible to all classes of ship in the Baltic Sea region.

Its flexible railway track system has enabled the ferry port of Sassnitz to develop into a special harbour for combined goods traffic.

As Sassnitz Port serves as an important point of operations to the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline construction, Senators Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Ron Johnson authored a personal threat to mayor Frank Kracht, announcing economic and legal sanctions should the port continue its function in the project.

The firm of INVO Bauplanung from Ribnitz-Damgarten wants to build a stone factory for 36 million euros on the former railway yard in the area of the ferry terminal because of its favourable location in terms of the delivery and collection of raw materials or finished goods by sea.

In 1984 a new ferry service was inaugurated between Neu Mukran and Klaipėda, providing a route between the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic which bypassed Poland.

Wagons had their bogies swapped for onward travel, or were unloaded, at extensive railway yards in Neu Mukran.

This link eased the supply of Russian troops in Germany in a period when Poland had become less supportive politically and wished to quadruple the transit fees it was paid.

The Pirates' Gorge (Piratenschlucht) in Sassnitz not far from the old town is supposed to have been one of the many hiding places for Störtebeker and his Victual Brothers in the Baltic Sea area.