Eckernförde was once one of Germany’s most important fishing centres. Hundreds of fishing boats set sail from here into the Baltic Sea – bearing registration numbers such as ‘Ecke 1’ or ‘Ecke 43’ and names such as ‘Silbermöwe’, ‘Nordstern’ or ‘Traute’. Their fishermen knew every nook and cranny of the fjord, every current, every change in the weather. Today, only a handful of fishing boats remain.
What remains of this world is in danger of disappearing into old manuscripts, private archives and fading memories. The Eckernförde Old Fish Smokehouse Museum has now introduced a digital countermeasure: eckekutter.de – a wiki containing articles on 290 fishing boats, their details, their owners and their stories.
An idea that took 14 years
In 1923, the year with the highest fish catch in Eckernförde’s history, 372 tonnes of sprats and herrings were landed from the fjord in a single day. By contrast, the total catch for the whole of 2021 was just 37 tonnes of fish. eckekutter.de is the first digital archive of its kind in the German-speaking world dedicated to the history of the fishing cutters.
The story begins in 2011. At that time, Martin Hüdepohl, a board member at the Museum Alte Fischräucherei Eckernförde, wanted to build a model of his great-grandfather’s cutter: the “Silbermöwe”, a wartime fishing cutter. Whilst searching for information, he came into contact with Dr Herwig Danner, an expert on these vessels.
In 2019, Danner had written a manuscript entitled “The Fishing Cutters of Eckernförde”, in collaboration with Ralf Trümner and Bernd Gradlowski – the result of years of research in shipping registers, specialist literature and private archives. He was unable to find a publisher for it. Hüdepohl suggested he turn the whole thing into a wiki. “But he didn’t want to – it was too new-fangled,” says the computer scientist.
In 2025, Hüdepohl learnt of Danner’s death. “I would have found it a great shame if all that work over the years had simply vanished.” He spoke to his aunt Katharina Mahrt, chair of the Alte Fischräucherei Eckernförde Museum. She got in touch with Trümner and Gradlowski – both were immediately enthusiastic. A plan was drawn up, and a grant application was submitted to the Elisabeth Eifert Foundation and approved.
Then things moved quickly. “It didn’t even take a week from the first line of code to the finished website,” says Hüdepohl. As a computer scientist, the technical side was the easiest part for him. The real effort lay in the 14 years leading up to it.
The ‘Scholle’ – and a cutter that sailed round the world
What might at first glance appear to be a dry ship register actually harbours fascinating individual stories – such as that of the “Scholle”. Martin Hüdepohl has known her since he was a child. The old cutter lay in Eckernförde harbour – half-forgotten, half-rotten. “It had always caught my eye as a young boy, and I always felt sorry for this ship, which I knew only as a half-wreck.” He thought it was a wartime fishing cutter, unspectacular, left behind like so many others.
It was only whilst working on the wiki that he discovered that the “Scholle” was once called “Burgtor”. The vessel was designed in 1921 by Max Oertz as a fishing boat with a pointed stern and built at his own shipyard on Reiherstieg in Hamburg. Its sister ship was called the “Holstentor”.
On 30 March 1925, Captain Carl Kircheiß bought the ‘Holstentor’, a pointed-bow fishing cutter based in Cuxhaven, for 25,000 marks. His plan: to sail round the world, taking on the sporting challenge of traversing each sea area during the winter. The round-the-world voyage began on 2 January 1926. With his cutter and a crew of five, Kircheiß set sail for around 20 countries on five continents during the journey, which lasted almost two years. He is regarded as the first German to have circumnavigated the globe in a fishing cutter.
The sister ship of this round-the-world vessel, the “Burgtor” – later renamed the “Scholle” – led a quieter life in the Eckernförde Fjord. At some point, she sank in the harbour and was scrapped. As a young boy, Hüdepohl watched it happen. “I’d always thought she was a wartime fishing cutter,” he says. “But now I’ve found out that she was something even cooler.”
290 Cutters – technical specifications and service records
The website currently lists 290 fishing cutters, including their registration numbers, shipyards, engines, technical specifications, owners and modifications. Three people maintain the wiki: Hüdepohl looks after the technical side, whilst Gradlowski and Trümner keep an eye out for new information, correct existing articles and answer questions in the forum.
One example of the level of detail is the page on the “Traute”, corner 86. Built in 1935 in Labiau, East Prussia – initially fitted with a 50 PS Deutz engine, later upgraded to 100 PS – she initially operated as the PIL 24 in Pillau. In August 1940, it was deployed as part of the Kriegsmarine’s ‘Seelöwe’ operation; it sank after being hit by an aerial bomb in Boulogne, was salvaged and repaired – and reappeared in Eckernförde in the 1940s. In 1979, she finally sank in Büsum and was scrapped. 290 such histories can be found on eckekutter.de.
What remained of the fishing industry
There are still a handful of commercial fishermen at Eckernförde harbour today. You can still get fresh fish there, although at the moment almost all of it is flounder.
The situation is no better across the country. By the end of 2024, only 303 cutter and coastal fishermen were registered as doing this as their main occupation. In the early 1990s, there were still more than 1,000. Climate change, overfishing, rising costs, shrinking fishing grounds due to wind farms and nature reserves – the reasons are many and varied. The result is the same: cutters are disappearing, their names are being forgotten, and stories are being lost.
Models made by fishermen
Alongside the website, a collection of fishing boat models is being built up at the Alte Fischräucherei Museum in Eckernförde. Almost every fisherman once owned a model or a painting of his boat. The museum currently has four models, which are to be restored first.
“I believe there is great potential here,” says Hüdepohl. He hopes that further memorabilia will be donated in the coming years – and that these will then also be available to view online at eckekutter.de.
The wiki thrives on user contributions. Anyone who can contribute suggestions, corrections, photos or additional information is invited to get involved via the comments section or the forum. There is currently a particular lack of reliable sources for the period before the 1920s.
Ursula Meer
Redakteurin Panorama und Reise
