9 Best Sights in Schleswig-Holstein and the Baltic Coast, Germany

This museum and family-research center tells the story of European emigration to the United States and elsewhere. The complex on the Elbe island Veddel, completed in 1901, was built by the HAPAG shipping line for its passengers and named after Alfred Ballin, its then general director. To accommodate visitors for several days or months, BallinStadt featured a hospital, church, music hall, housing, and hotels. For approximately 5 million European emigrants, Hamburg was the \"Gateway to the World\" between 1850 and 1939. Their experience comes to life with artifacts, interactive displays, detailed reproductions of the buildings (all but one was demolished), as well as firsthand accounts of oppression in Europe, life in the \"city,\" conditions during the 60-day ocean crossing, and life in their new home. The main draw is the research booths, where you can search the complete passenger lists of all ships that left the harbor.  Research assistants are available to help locate and track your ancestors.

This museum is dedicated to the time of the Hanseatic League which is considered one of the most significant chapters in Northern German and European history. It exhibits dioramas, original artifacts, and interactive elements to convey a journey through 500 years of medieval trading.

Peenemünde, at the northwest tip of Usedom, is the launch site of the world's first ballistic missiles, the V-1 and V-2, developed by Germany during World War II. At the Historisch-Technisches Museum you can view these rockets as well as models of early airplanes and ships. One exhibit, in particular, covers the moral responsibility of scientists who develop new technology by focusing on the secret plants where most of the rocket parts were assembled, and where thousands of slave laborers died.

The listed Kaispeicher B, built in 1878/79, houses the world’s largest private maritime collection. On nine exhibition decks ship models, including ivory and amber ones, merchant shipping, naval history spanning three thousand years of seafaring, and marine research are on display.

Burned down during the air raids of World War II, the ruins of the neo-Gothic church serve as a memorial for the victims of war and persecution from 1933 to 1945. The museum features an exhibition on the air raids and the destruction of Hamburg and other European cities. A glass elevator on the outside of the building takes visitors 250 feet up to the steeple, which offers magnificent views of the surrounding historic streets.

The museum houses a wide range of exhibits, from 15th- to 18th-century scientific instruments to an art nouveau interior complete with ornaments and furnishings. Its founder, Justus Brinckmann, amassed a wealth of unusual objects, including ceramics from around the world.

Housed in a listed hall of the old fish market, this museum pays tribute to Kiel's impressive maritime history as a port city, as a naval and shipyard location, and as a place of sailing sports. 

An excursion to this little museum, inside an original 19th-century warehouse, gives you a sense of the trade that flowed through the Speicherstadt in its heyday. Sacks of coffee and spices, chests of tea, and scales and mills are scattered throughout the museum, and there is information detailing the history and architecture of the district, as well as historical photographs and diagrams.

This small museum tells the centuries-long history of the island's seafaring people. It presents traditional costumes, tools, and other gear from fishing boats and relates stories of islanders who fought for Sylt's independence. In the same street (at No. 13) stands the Altfriesisches Haus (Old Frisian House), which offers a glimpse of the rugged lives of 19th-century fishermen and a time when most seamen thrived on extensive whale hunting.