Riems

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The Riems located in the southwest of the Bay of Greifswald, one located between the mainland and the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea flat tail.

Riems belongs administratively to the urban area of ​​the Hanseatic city of Greifswald, but is an exclave. To her except Riems includes Riemserort, a district which lies opposite the island to the mainland.

Geography

The Riems measures in west-east direction about 1,250 meters and from north to south at the widest point around 300 meters. It has been linked in the early 1970s by a 500 meter long, man made causeway to the mainland and was therefore more than 30 years actually only a peninsula. Previously, there were 1926 to 1972 for material transport a cable car to the mainland, are available from the two foundations of the former cable car supports. Since the lack of fresh water supply of Gristower Wiek has led to a shortage of oxygen in the shallow bay, the dam was opened to the island in the fall of 2007 at a length of 30 meters again.

Fauna

Riems situated in an important resting and moulting area for waterfowl. The Fahrenbrink peninsula is designated as a nature reserve. From each species of waterfowl wintering up to 15 percent of the northern European population in the Bay of Greifswald and Stralsund area, which was therefore declared the "European bird sanctuary ".

History

Riems was already inhabited in prehistoric times, such as the Stone Age and Slavic archaeological finds prove. Later, the island was, together with the neighboring village Gristow the family of Dotenberg. Between 1375 and 1382 Riems and Gristow passed into the possession of the town of Greifswald, which leased the then uninhabited island as pasture. After 1820 a homestead was built by the city, which dates from 1883 sold to the previous tenant.

The Riems houses the oldest virological research facility in the world that has been built there since 1910 by Friedrich Loeffler. Loeffler, Professor at the University of Greifswald, had 1898 found by filtration experiments had to be that for the dangerous foot-and-mouth disease is not bacteria, but a hitherto unknown class " allerkleinster organisms " responsible - he had discovered the virus. After Loeffler had infected in its investigations accidentally an entire region at Greifswald with the foot-and-mouth disease, he moved in 1910 for safety reasons with his bank on the island Riems.

In the Third Reich potential biological weapons were tested for Riems.

In GDR times, the research and development of vaccines was on Riems around 800 people work, today there are less than half. It does not live many people Riems: There are only 13 houses, namely five one - or two-family homes and eight apartment buildings with a total of 62 residential units.

Since 1997, the Riemser research complex is the headquarters of the Friedrich- Loeffler- Institute ( FLI). The duties of the FLI include the study of animal diseases, such as BSE, foot and mouth disease, swine fever, and the development of preventive and protective measures against it, especially veterinary vaccines. In 2006, research on Riems on a vaccine against the H5N1 avian influenza. As of 2008, the system has been greatly expanded and modernized. Until the completion in 2013, the federal government has invested about 300 million euros in the two new buildings. It created 89 laboratories with different levels of security, as well as 163 stalls. The plant was inaugurated in August 2013 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The former manufacturing plant for animal vaccines was spun off after the turn and successfully privatized as Riemser Arzneimittel AG. It now has about 150 employees at location Riems.

Because of the research with viruses, the island is again closed to the public after the residential area in the western part of the island was accessible for a few years in the 90s. In quarantine stables and laboratories Security levels apply to protection level 4 this means for employees and visitors consuming and outfeed with changing clothes and showering.

The former manufacturing plant for animal vaccines, today Riemser Arzneimittel AG

The guinea pig monument commemorates their use as experimental animals at the FLI in the FMD research since the 1920s.