Harbours - Then and Now
Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia
Many ships that wrecked in Shetland waters departed or were bound to harbours in the Baltic Sea. Many of those have changed their names mainly due to events following WWII. The following list of place names might be a help to identify such places on modern maps.
Also included are some places, which have not changed their name, but where some changes in their political status may be of interest.
A
- Altona, formerly main port of the southern (German) provinces of the Kingdom of Danmark;
is now: Part of the Free and Hanseatic Town of Hamburg (Federal State of Germany)
B
- Bremen, formerly Hanseatic Town;
is now: 'Hansestadt Bremen (Federal State of Germany)
D
- Danzig, also spelled Dantzig in many older sources, Hanseatic Free Town, later part of Prussia and Poland;
is now: Gdansk (Poland)
E
- Emden, was under the same name the principal harbour town of the Kingdom of Hanover;
is now: a provincial centre within the Federal State of Lower Saxony (Germany)
K
- Königsberg (literally translated: Cunningsburgh), was for some time major port of the grand-dukedom of Brandenburg and the Kingdom of Prussia, later of the German province of Eastern Prussia;
is now: Kaliningrad, capital of the semi-automous area of Russia (Kaliningradski Oblask)
L
- Lübeck, formerly Hanseatic Free Town, later part of Prussia;
is now: part of the Federal State of Sleswig-Holsatia, Germany
M
- Memel, Hanseatic Town, part of Eastern Prussia;
is now: Klaipeda (Lituania)
P
- Pillau was something like a "deep-water harbour" to Köningsberg, located immediately at the shores of the Baltic Sea;
is now: Baltisk (Kaliningradsk Oblask, Russia)
S
- Stettin, Hanseatic Town, later part of Swedish and German province of Pommerania;
is now: Szczecin (Poland)
