Kampen is located north of the island’s main town, Westerland. The municipality is part of the Amt Landschaft Sylt. The local economy is dominated by tourism. The name Kaamp means “a marked out field”.
The first mention of Kampen occurs in a tax registry from 1543. The village is considered to have been founded quite late, possibly as a result of people moving there from an earlier settlement destroyed by a storm. For centuries, until around 1900, Kampen was a rural village shaped by agriculture. Shipping and fishing as well as other industries and crafts played a relatively smaller role in the village’s development. Together with Wenningstedt, the village of Kampen constituted part of the so-called “Northern Villages” (Norddörfer) of Sylt. The church and school were shared due to the low number of citizens in the respective villages – so they could only be supported through a common effort.
Kampen, a quiet hamlet situated in a heath, was discovered by tourists quite late. Until the beginning of the 20th century the place was merely regarded an insider’s tip among travellers. Only in the 1920s did Kampen’s reputation as a seaside resort begin to develop. An ordnance from 1912, which is still effective today, requires that all houses in the village be built in the traditional style, i.e. brick buildings with thatched roofs. From the 1920s on, the summer residences and villas of mostly wealthy guests were constructed on the Nordheide around the old village core. Beginning in 1921, writer Thomas Mann was a guest of Siegfried Jacobsohn and later often stayed at Haus Kliffende, north of the village. Many other intellectuals, musicians, writers and other artists flocked to the area. These included Max Frisch, Emil Nolde, Carl Zuckmayer, Heinrich Vogeler and Lovis Corinth. In 1923, there were 1,213 visitors to Kampen. Ferdinand Avenarius is considered as the first popularizer of Sylt. Today, a park is named after him. Thus the area of Kampen multiplied within a few years. Despite early plannings from the 1920s, the western heath of Kampen was not covered with buildings though and today is a nature reserve. Kampen became a separate municipality on 21 March 1927, when the Norddörfer association was dissolved by the Prussian authorities, creating the Landgemeinde Kampen.
After World War II the village became a venue of the “rich and famous” – the tycoons of the Wirtschaftswunder. Also many celebrities of cinema and television thought Kampen to be fashionable. Gunter Sachs was one of those the public associated with the village. In the 1960s there was a considerable boost in the naturist movement. Especially the nude beach at Buhne 16 in Kampen gained popularity by frequent media reports. The boom slowed down in the 1980s. Today Kampen remains an upscale tourist resort.
