In the 12th century, there was a convent here and a fishing village developed around it in the following centuries. The village was "discovered" by artists around 1910. After WW I many painters and writers from all over Europe settled here and nearby, among them Aldous Huxley

When the Nazis took over Germany, many German emigrants came and the place became an important center of exile. Bertolt Brecht, Ferdinand Bruckner, Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger, Walter Hasenclever, Alfred Kantorowicz, Hermann Kesten, Egon Erwin Kisch, Arthur Koestler, the Mann family, and many others lived here for a while. Many of them migrated to the US from here.