The island loved by posh tourists the UK swapped to get African paradise from Germany

A little island now loved by tourists had been a point of tension for centuries before it was swapped by the British for a piece of Africa from .

The fight over , which sits in a territorially significant part of Europe, goes back to when the island was under Danish control from the early 18th century until 1814 when the seized it.

The British had the idea of building a naval base to patrol seas against France, the Netherlands and Prussia during the Napoleonic period, formalised in the Treaty of Keel in 1814.

its leaders wanted to establish it as an industrial and military powerhouse, but Heligoland posed the potential for issues as it lies on a major trade route.

In 1848, the Danish were able to blockade the river and cut off trade during a war with Prussia, and Germany was concerned that France would be able to do the same to them if they went into war, hence it wanted claim to the island.

This led to a series of discussions between Britain and Germany for which Zanzibar and Heligoland bore the consequences, having been used as trading chips by the two empires.

Britain handed over Heligoland in 1890 to Germany in return for the as well as access to territory in East Africa, where it wanted to build a railway to land-locked Lake Victoria.

Heavily fortified in both world wars, Heligoland once again briefly became a British possession in 1945, reverting to Germany in 1952.

Its tarred history continued after both when in 1947, the British decided to dispose of thousands of tonnes of unexploded ammunition in Heligoland.

Olaf Ohlsen, who was 11 years old in 1947, told the “Even in Hamburg, which is more than 150 km (93 miles) from the island, a schoolteacher kept a document which said the British had warned everyone to leave doors and windows open to help the buildings withstand the blast.”