Burg on Fehmarn: Churches, Town History and Culture

Burg on Fehmarn offers several ways to explore the town’s history: at the museum, on guided walks and along themed routes. Churches, a historic house and traces of the artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner each add a different perspective. You can plan your days around art, architectural history or an overview of the island’s history.

Museum, Art and Island History

The Fehmarn Museum is housed in the island’s oldest building, the former parson’s widow’s house dating from 1581. Its 23 exhibition rooms display artefacts relating to the island’s geological history, as well as its eventful past. Traditional crafts and the importance of the guilds complement exhibits on seafaring, fishing and hunting. The exhibitions thus span a broad sweep, from Fehmarn’s formation to the activities that have shaped life on the island.

The Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Documentation Centre in Burg offers a more focused artistic perspective. It features life-size reproductions of important paintings, historic photographs and reproductions of sketchbooks; information about the artist’s life and work completes the presentation. The “In Kirchner’s Footsteps” walking route leads through Burg and connects places where the Expressionist worked with recognisable motifs from his paintings on Fehmarn. The documentation centre and the route offer different ways to explore his work: one focuses on exhibits and the artist’s biography, the other on the connection between motifs and places.

Walks with Different Focuses

Historical town and church tours of St. Nikolai Church and the 800-year-old town of Burg are also on the Tourismus-Service Fehmarn event programme for 2026. The approximately 90-minute walk starts at the Fehmarn Museum, Breite Straße 49. If you plan to attend a tour, check the relevant date in advance.

The official audio guide offers a different time frame: the route is just under 3 kilometres long and takes about 35 minutes. It leads through the historic old town to the town hall, the historic Senator-Thomsen-Haus, St. Jürgen Chapel, the Fehmarn Museum and St. Nikolai Church. The two formats therefore differ both in their stated duration and in the type of walk: the guided tour is a scheduled event, while the audio guide describes a route with several stops.

Chapel History and Church Architecture

St. Jürgen Chapel was originally built outside the town walls as a plague chapel for people with leprosy and other outcasts. During the season, Friedel Beck offers a roughly half-hour guided tour or talk about the chapel’s history every other Monday at 5 pm. The 2026 season programme lists the dates. This gives the chapel its own historical focus alongside the more comprehensive town and church tours.

St. Nikolai Church is a Gothic brick church built between 1230 and 1250. One of its notable furnishings is a late Gothic wooden winged altarpiece divided horizontally. Those interested in architectural history will find a clear contrast with the town history presented at the museum: here, the focus is on a single building and its furnishings, rather than a range of subjects.

Plan Your Stay Around Your Interests

The different topics and time formats can help you plan your day, without limiting you to just one way of exploring Burg’s history.

Discover more destinations: Staberdorf, Wulfen, Bannesdorf, Katharinenhof, Albertsdorf, Fehmarnsund, Vadersdorf, Presen.

Return to the main travel overview: Fehmarn.