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Bornholm: Encyclopedia BETAFree Encyclopedia |
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The island is located to the east of Denmark, the south of Sweden, and the north of Poland. The main industries on the island include fishing, pottery using locally worked clay, clockmaking and dairy farming. Tourism is important during the summer. The small islands Ertholmene are located 18 km to the north-east of Bornholm. Strategically located in the Baltic, Bornholm has been a bone of contention usually ruled by Denmark, but also by Lübeck and Sweden. The castle ruin Hammershus on the northwestern tip of the island gives testimony to its strategic importance, as the island is home to the largest fortress in northern Europe. Municipality
Ferry service connects the municipality at the town of Rønne to Świnoujście (Poland), Sassnitz (Germany), Køge (Denmark) and Ystad (Sweden). Simrishamn (Sweden) will have ferry connection at summer. Bornholm Regional Municipality will not be merged with other municipalities by January 1, 2007 as the result of nationwide Kommunalreformen ("The Municipal Reform" of 2007). HistoryIn the Old Icelandic sources, its name is Burgundarholm, and Alfred the Great uses the form Burgenda land. Some scholars believe that the Burgundians are named after Bornholm; the Burgundians were a Germanic tribe which moved west when the western Roman Empire collapsed, and occupied and named Burgundy in France.The island was originally part of Scania (Skåneland). When the eastern provinces of Denmark were ceded to Sweden in 1658, Bornholm was returned to Denmark-Norway two years later (along with Trøndelag and Anholt).
On 22 August 1943 a rocket (numbered V83, probably launched from a Heinkel He 111) crashed on Bornholm as part of a test - the warhead was a dummy made of concrete. This was photographed or sketched by the Danish Naval Officer-in-Charge on Bornholm, Lieutenant Commander Hasager Christiansen. This was the first sign British Intelligence saw of Germany's aspirations to develop flying bombs and rockets - which were to become known as V1 and V2. Bornholm was heavily bombarded by Soviet forces in May 1945. Von Kamft, the German superior officer in charge of the island garrison refused to surrender to Soviet forces, as his orders were to surrender to the Allied Forces. The Germans sent several telegrams to Copenhagen requesting that at least one British soldier should be transferred to Bornholm, so that the Germans could surrender to the western allied forces instead of the Russians. When Von Kamft failed to provide a written capitulation as demanded by the Russian commanders, several Soviet aircraft relentlessly bombed and destroyed more than 800 civilian houses and seriously damaged roughly 3000 more during 7-8 May 1945. Eventually, the German garrison did surrender to the Soviet forces, which occupied the island until April 5, 1946. As a result, quite a few natives of Bornholm to this day regard Russians with some suspicion and contempt, as the Russian forces made their presence felt for a whole year while looting and ravaging the Bornholm countryside. More recently NATO radar installations have been placed on the island. A Russian (Soviet) declaration after World War II stated that the placement of "foreign soldiers" (i.e., NATO forces) on Bornholm would be considered a declaration of war against Russia, and that Denmark should keep troops on it at all times to protect it from foreign aggression. This caused diplomatic problems at least twice: once when an American helicopter landed outside the city of Svaneke due to engine problems in a NATO exercise over the Baltic Sea, and once (somewhere between 1999 and 2003) when the Danish government suggested shutting down Almegårdens Kaserne, the local military facility, since "the island could quickly be protected by troops from surrounding areas and has no strategic importance after the fall of the Iron Curtain". Medieval architectureThe island is home to 15 medieval churches, four of which are round and display unique artwork and architecture.References in popular cultureA considerable part of the Second World War spy thriller Hornet Flight by Ken Follet takes place on Bornholm, depicting the island under German occupation.In 1992, the book The Templars' Secret Island by theorists Henry Lincoln (famous for co-writing Holy Blood, Holy Grail) and Erling Haagensen described several observations about the island. Some of these involved claims of apparent sacred geometry, such as that Haagensen in the 1980s had discovered that geometry related to the Island's four round churches could be marked on a map to define a 5-pointed star or pentacle, similar to the pentacles Lincoln perceived as formed by churches and mountain peaks in the French countryside around Rennes-le-Chateau. Rennes-le-Chateau is the primary focal point in southern France for the mysteries surrounding a purported bloodline of Jesus Christ through Mary Magdalene. Lincoln and Haagensen's Secret Island book claims that the Bornholm pentacle was manmade, was created around the time of the emergence of the Knights Templar during the early Crusades in 1188-1250 AD, required measurement technology that was hundreds of years ahead of its time, and that the churches' true original function may have been as medieval astronomical observatories for the Knights Templar. The conclusions in Secret Island are controversial, and have not been supported by academic historians. Critics point out that there is no record of medieval astronomical observatories in Europe, no record of the Templars ever being involved in scientific research of that nature, and in fact never any record of Templars even having a presence in Scandinavia, even in the long list of Templar accusations generated by the investigators of the Inquisition. Other islands in the Baltic Sea* Gotland, Åland* Rügen, Usedom * Saaremaa, Hiiumaa * Wolin See also* Bornholm disease* Bornholm County References* Essai sur l'histoire du peuple burgonde, de Bornholm (Burgundarholm) vers la Bourgogne et les Bourguignons, 1965, by Rene Guichard, published by A. et J. Picard et Cie.* King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of Orosius, London, 1859, edited by J. Bosworth. * The Island of Bornholm, a chapter in Selected Prose by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, 1969, Northwestern University Press. * The Battle of Bornholm in The hidden folk : stories of fairies, dwarves, selkies, and other secret beings, by Lise Lunge-Larsen, 2004, Houghton Mifflin. * The Templars' Secret Island: The Knights, the Priest, and the Treasure, 1992, by Erling Haagensen and Henry Lincoln * Behind the Da Vinci Code, 2006 documentary by The History Channel External links* Municipality's official website* Tourist information * Bornholm's Museum * Google Map * A concise history of Denmark, and Bornholm * Photographs of Bornholm and Christiansø * Municipal statistics: NetBorger Kommunefakta, delivered from KMD aka Kommunedata (Municipal Data) * Kings of Bornholm * Hotels on Bornholm * Regional TV station * Municipal mergers and neighbors: Eniro new municipalities map
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