Schwanenstein

The swan stone is a boulder off the island of Rügen. It is located about 100 m east of the port of Lohme community on the northern edge of Jasmund peninsula about 20 meters from the beach in the Baltic Sea. He has a mass of 162 tons and a volume of 60 cubic meters and is one fifth largest boulder, as about 20 other large boulder to the legally protected geotopes on the island of Rügen. Its floor plan is about seven meters long and five meters wide. The boulder is shown in stylized coat of arms of Lohme.

Origin and characteristics

The swan stone consists of so-called hammer granite and is very likely transported by the last ice age from Bornholm to its present location. To its reddish appearance contributes particularly the high proportion of K-feldspar. On the west side of the stone by pulling a conspicuous gap that has been enlarged by the crystallization pressure frozen ice in the course of time and will probably soon lead to the detachment of a large plate.

Legends and stories

As with many other boulders are also connected with the swan stone legends and stories.

• According to legend it is said that on Rügen the babies from the stork in summer and in winter are brought from the swan. Until then, the children are hidden in the stone.

• A sad incident occurred on February 13, 1956, when some boys from the orphanage and the village Lohme near the shore on the frozen Baltic Sea just were. The weather changed suddenly, storm came up and had to break the ice. Three boys saved themselves on the swan stone. With increasing wind, which was a hurricane, ran at a feverish rescue operation. Local fishermen, a fishing boat from Sassnitz and border guards tried to save the children, but storm surge and undid all efforts. Rescue workers from outside, for example, an engineer platoon of the People's Police of Prora, remained in the meter-high snowdrifts stuck. The next morning, as the weather had calmed down, the three boys Helmut Petersen, Uwe Wassilowsky and Manfred Prewitz were found dead from the swan stone. They were in the cemetery of Nipmerow, a district of Lohme, buried. The grave was 39 years later, on 14 February 1995, on the initiative of children of the orphanage Lohme a memorial stone.