"I see myself on Sylt at the intersection of three smooth surfaces that themselves stand in the infinity of space: the flat heathland, the roundness of the sky, and the table of the sea flowing in blue, green, and silver."
The moment you step onto the island, all your senses are fully absorbed. It is never the same, yet always unmistakable." The man who praises Sylt so highly was already a nature lover as a child, as his father ran a farm. As the firstborn, Peter Suhrkamp was supposed to take over the farm, but in 1914 he volunteered instead for military service. He survived and studied German after the war, working as a dramaturge, director, teacher, and journalist. He worked his way up purposefully at S. Fischer Verlag in Berlin, becoming publishing house director in 1936. A year earlier, Suhrkamp married. His wife Annemarie, a sister of the writer Ina Seidel, owned a house in Kampen. From then on, it served less as a vacation home for the Suhrkamps and more primarily as a leisure destination for writers such as Max Frisch, Ernst Penzoldt, Carl Zuckmayer, and Alfred Andersch. "Let yourself go! Don't get restless, don't despair if you can't write a word for three or four weeks," Suhrkamp advised the authors. A housekeeper looked after the guests with loving care. At lunch, there's mackerel steamed on rosehips, blueberries with feta cheese for dessert, and in between, Perle occasionally types manuscripts. Even in faraway Berlin, the authors aren't forgotten: During wartime shortages, Suhrkamp regularly sends them books—but they're hollowed out and contain spirits instead of witty treatises.
and tobacco. In 1941, Suhrkamp was slandered and accused of high treason. After being held in several prisons and concentration camps, he was finally released in 1945, seriously ill. A year later, he checked on his house in Kampen. "The mattresses and beds, the linen and the dishes – everything has been completely robbed," he complained to Hermann Hesse in a letter. But things soon improved again: in 1950, Suhrkamp founded his own publishing house. Suhrkamp summarized Sylt: "I could sit still in the area around Kampen for days and just look out. Everything on this island is so close and present, yet at the same time in a glassy distance." Nevertheless, he sold his property in 1953 because he needed money for the rights to the German Complete Works of Marcel Proust – which comprised 4500 pages. Peter Suhrkamp, described by Carl Zuckmayer as a "very deeply inclined, somewhat brooding character," died of heart failure shortly after Easter in 1959. In his handwritten will, he requested cremation. Afterward, his ashes were to be scattered in the North Sea off Sylt, but this type of burial was still legally prohibited at the time. Thus, he was laid to rest in the Keitum cemetery.
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Pets Allowed
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Arrival & Parking
Car: From the direction of List and Wenningstedt you can reach Kampen via the main road.
Bicycle: The old island railway line provides a north-south connection as a cycling and hiking path. A cycle path runs alongside Braderuper Weg from Keitum/Braderup to Kampen.
On foot: You can reach Kampen from the Westerland/Wenningstedt and List directions both via the beach and along the hiking trail along the former island railway line. From Wenningstedt, a wooden walkway leads through the dunes over the Red Cliff to Kampen. From the Braderup/Keitum direction, you can walk along the heathland paths along the mudflats.
Bus: You can reach Kampen with line 1 from Westerland and List.
To reach the stele, please get off at Kampen Mitte.
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Organization
Sylt Marketing GmbH
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Kampen Tourism Service
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