Plötzensee outdoor pool

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Plötzensee outdoor pool, main building

The Plötzensee outdoor pool , also known as the Plötzensee lido , is an outdoor pool on the west bank of the Plötzensee in the Berlin district of Wedding . The bathroom goes back to several predecessors in the 19th century. The current design and the listed main building date from the 1920s. Since the Plötzensee is protected as a landscape protection area, a visit to the outdoor pool is the only legal way to swim in the lake. The bath belongs to the Berlin baths companies that have leased it. Around 10,000 visitors come to the pool on peak days.

history

Today Plötzensee is in Wedding, but it came to Berlin relatively late. Until 1915 the lake belonged to the Plötzensee estate , whose lord was the Prussian army . The private swimming pool operators got their permission from the army, the military swimming pool was on their own premises. It was only after the lake came to Berlin in 1915 that the magistrate began to take an interest in the lake and a few years later began building a public outdoor swimming pool.

Civil baths

In the 19th century to around the middle of the 19th century, there was a smaller bathing area on the west bank of the Plötzensee with a non-swimmer area and a lifeguard . The first large private swimming pool was built by the gymnastics and fencing instructor Wilhelm Auerbach - after whom the Auerbach Salto is named - in 1877. The Auerbach wave pool had a paddle wheel that was used to create waves in the water. There was also a diving platform and there were separate areas for men and women. In 1906 the bathroom changed hands. The pool , now known as the Pantziersche wave pool , was a great public attraction . The changing rooms were enough for 800 people. In addition to the wave wheel, it also had a sealed off, competitive 50-meter pool area that could be expanded to 100 meters. A small ladies' bathroom also belonged to the bathroom.

Military bath

The Prussian army has also been using the Plötzensee for swimming since 1850. The nearby Rehberge served the army as a training area, and so a military bathing establishment was built on the east bank of the Plötzensee. Only an outdoor area with around 10,000 m² in forest and meadow, there were also buildings with changing rooms since 1891. The pool included a raft, the separation between swimmers and non-swimmers, and various diving boards. The basins of the military bath were excavated at a depth of 12 meters.

Today's bathroom

Beach, 2005

The current site was created in the 1920s. Together with the creation of the Rehberge public park, Wedding, which had not been developed until then, was to be redesigned as a leisure location for the workers living in Wedding. The planning for the construction of a public bath began in 1922. The construction of the bath and the redesign of the area took several years. The opening took place on a construction site in 1923. Soon after the opening, up to 10,000 visitors a day came in the summer months. At weddings, the number of visitors to the pool rose to 30,000 to 40,000 visitors a day. The pool was completed between 1926 and 1928. Originally, a 100-meter lane in the water and a ten-meter diving platform belonged to the pool, but neither of them survived the Second World War . After the war, a new 100-meter track, a 50-meter track and two 25-meter pools and a 5-meter diving platform were built by 1951, of which there are no more traces today. By 1955 a large water slide and three-meter boards were added.

The construction of a water ski facility , which was planned in the 1970s, did not come about.

The Plötzensee itself has no above-ground inflows or outflows, so that it reacts relatively sensitively to the exposure to swimmers. By the 1990s, the situation had worsened so much that the lake threatened to tip over. From 1997 Berlin enriched the lake with oxygen and pumped out several thousand tons of digested sludge . Even if the water is now classified as harmless, blue-green algae can occur again and again at short notice , for example in August 2014.

Terrain and facilities

The facilities were designed by the horticultural director Rudolf Germer and the buildings by the architects Walter Krüger and Johannes Krüger. The original bank was several meters above the water level of the lake. For the conversion to the bath, the bank was removed directly on the lake and an artificial sandy beach was built there. In the middle of the main building, a wide granite staircase leads up to the actual bank level. To the left and right of the stairs there are vaulted buildings with sanitary facilities, lounges and restaurants under a slate-covered conical roof . In addition, retaining walls separate banks and meadows, and terraces are attached to the retaining walls. On the north and south banks of the beach are smaller tower-like pavilions , which house a kiosk on the lower floor and a patio with a view of the lake on the upper floor . Above this is also a slate-thatched conical roof. In 2019, the Plötzensee lido was taken over by new tenants who have since been busy restoring the listed buildings and setting up new gastronomic offers. Since the beginning of 2020 there has been a new café and a “fine snack” in one of the towers of the historic main building.

Accidents

Already during the Empire and during the Weimar Republic there were repeated deaths in Plötzensee, so that the lake was popularly known as the "Dead Sea" at the beginning of the 20th century. In June 1920 alone ten people died in the lake. At that time, changing water depths and water temperatures, which overwhelmed non-swimmers and inexperienced swimmers, were considered to be the cause.

Even today people are drowning in the lake. Usually, however, it is not about swimming pool visitors, but rather people who go swimming from the opposite shore of the lake. In 1992 a drunk man swam on the lake and drowned. 2014 saw a lot of publicity when a man drowned in the lake. The drowned man came from Cameroon , and according to witness statements, the swimming master and works manager on duty at the time refused to save the man. The then swimming master himself was a dropout from the right-wing extremist scene. Several witnesses and bathers had complained for some time that the staff had worn appropriate scene clothing or that their cell phones had the music of a neo-Nazi band as the ringtone. In the subsequent process, the swimming master was acquitted. In 2015, a man disappeared who had also entered the bathroom in an unsecured position on the bank.

There were also arguments about the staff in 2013. A Latin American music festival planned in the bathroom was canceled at short notice. According to the organizer, he and his team had been racially insulted by the staff and also physically attacked by the operator of a crepe stand. The former operator rejected the allegations and made the lack of approval from the city responsible for the cancellation. The festival itself then took place in the Yaam.

reception

Map from 1915 with the area of ​​the military bathing facility on the right bank of the lake

The lake was given its first role in public awareness by Captain von Köpenick . In 1906 he placed soldiers under his command who had just come from guard duty at the military bathing establishment.

In literary terms, the bathroom also appears several times in the blog Work and Structure by Wolfgang Herrndorf , which has now been published as a book . The blog was created after Herrndorf was diagnosed with a brain tumor and describes his life in that time. Herrndorf, a swimmer and living near the lake, kept looking for it and described it in the blog.

Web links

Commons : Plötzensee swimming pool  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Alina-Doreen Gröning: Berlin pool operators complain about the summer without sun. In: BZ. August 21, 2016. Retrieved August 26, 2016 .
  2. a b c d e f g h i Uta Maria Bräuer and Jost Lehne: Bäderbau in Berlin . Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86732-129-7 , pp. 35-36 .
  3. a b Sabine Deckwerth: Thousands were drawn to Plötzensee on the weekend / Health administration: all outdoor and lido with good water quality: the can of beer is in the shadow of the recorder. In: Berliner Zeitung. July 25, 1994, accessed August 26, 2016 .
  4. ^ A b Matthias Donath: Mitte district, Wedding and Gesundbrunnen districts. In: Senate Department for Urban Development and Environmental Protection (Ed.): Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany. Monuments in Berlin . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2004, p. 246-247 .
  5. a b Online editorial team: And now also Algae ›BERLINER ABENDBLATT› Plötzensee, Strandbad ›Wedding-Tiergarten. Retrieved August 26, 2016 .
  6. Berliner Morgenpost - Berlin: Man disappears while bathing in Plötzensee. In: morgenpost.de. July 5, 2015, accessed August 26, 2016 .
  7. ^ Sophie Maass: Dispute in the Plötzensee lido. In: Der Tagesspiegel. May 31, 2013, accessed August 26, 2016 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 32 ′ 36.7 "  N , 13 ° 19 ′ 45.7"  E