Eckernforde

Eckernförde lies on a bay of the Baltic coast in Schleswig. First recorded in 1197, it was explicitly called a town in 1302, although its inhabitants had already been described as townspeople in 1288. A Danish castle near the settlement gave it an older name, Ykærnæburgh, recorded in King Valdemar's census book. The squirrel on the town's seal reflects the first part of that name. In 1628 Christian IV of Denmark took Eckernförde from imperial troops during the Thirty Years' War.