Listening station Der Riesenwels

On April 26, 1979 it emerged from the depths of the Zwischenahner Sea and jumped into the headlines of the national and international press: the legendary catfish. He suddenly made Bad Zwischenahn famous far beyond the borders of northern Germany. It is said to have been 3.50 meters long and looked like a monster. The headline that the catfish had swallowed a dog alive turned out to be a false report from a German tabloid newspaper. In Bad Zwischenahn everyone knows about the legend of the Zwischenahn catfish. Some saw him, others he kissed and everyone said he was huge. But nobody can say with certainty how old they are and how they got to the Zwischenahner Meer. At this point the ultimate truth is entrusted to all of them:

In ancient times there was an island in the middle of the Zwischenahner Sea on which a magnificent castle was built. This is where the Junker Alwin resided, a bearded giant with red-blond hair and a noble disposition. In addition to fishing, his greatest passion was Frollein from Oldenburg. But this was promised to the tsar and although she felt just as deep affection for Alwin, at the age of 21 she had to move to the court in Petersburg to live by her husband's side. On the night of the farewell, the disappointed Junker swore eternal loyalty to his loved one and that he would never leave his island again in his life. In the years that followed, full of loneliness and grief, the Junker's stature took on a strange change, and in an apocalyptic thunderstorm exactly five years after the painful separation he had turned into a large catfish. Gurgling under thunder and lightning, the whole island including the castle sank into the waters of the raging sea. When the September sun shone again the next morning, the astonished fishermen could only make out a silver sparkle deep on the seabed.

It was all a long time ago and almost forgotten. At night, however, when the moon is reflected particularly round in the lake, the frogs often pause in their song, herons and swans reverently put on their wings. Then an ancient, large catfish with a red beard glides loudly and apparently aimlessly majestically along the surface of its realm. He is the attentive protector of the virgins who shyly bathe here at night. And when on hot summer days the joie de vivre meets a humid rendezvous on the shores, it is not monsters or fish that sleep in the Palace of the Deep, but the loyal soul from a thousand and one full moon nights.