So far, it has been looming from a far distance, the big top by the seaside. Like a hard-to-climb peak it overshadows the five dilapidated villas at the beach of Heiligendamm. Their chipped white paint only reminds of the Art Nouveau pearls they used to be. In the oldest beach town of Germany, where once hordes of tourists trailed their feet through the sand, there are now only screeching seagulls. The village has been closed off hermetically with a 12-kilometer-long barbed-wire fence. Marine cruisers are patrolling the seaside. Heiligendamm is a ghost town.