Wannsee lido
The Wannsee lido is one of the largest open-air swimming pools on inland water in Europe . It is located on the east bank of the Großer Wannsee , a branch of the Havel in Berlin .
The beach is located south of the island Schwanenwerder (address: Wannseebadweg 25) in the district of Berlin-Nikolassee the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf and as a municipal swimming pool of the Berlin baths establishments managed. It was opened in 1907 as a so-called family pool and has a sandy beach of 1275 m. On a total area of 355,000 m² (130,000 m² of which is water) it has a capacity for 12,000 bathers (at peak times a maximum of 30,000) - about 10 to 15% of them in the nudist area.
history
Early years
In May 1907, the district administrator of the Teltow district , to which the area belonged until it was incorporated into Berlin in 1920, allowed bathing in the Großer Wannsee, which had been forbidden until then. On May 8, 1907, construction work began to transform the Wannsee bank into a lido. From then on, the bathing area was not only a popular excursion destination, but soon became the “bathtub for Berliners”.
Residents of the capital and metropolis of millions who could not afford a trip to the "summer retreat" of one of the glamorous Baltic Sea resorts now had the opportunity to sunbathe and swim with the whole family ( Berlin : with children ) on the Wannsee beach as a local recreation area . In addition, the “wild goings-on”, which was unusually revealing for the time, also attracted many onlookers.
The first changing rooms were soon erected in order not to endanger the “morality” of mixed bathing. While conservative circles and especially villa owners from the noble area protested against the life-reforming and proletarian open-air swimming pool, clubs were formed from 1909: the "Club fideler Sun brothers", the "Wannseaten" and the "Workers' Swimming Association".
Development of visitor numbers: After over 500,000 bathers came to the Wannsee in 1912, there were already 900,000 in 1927. The lido reached its all-time record in the year it opened (1930) with 1,300,000 visitors.
Today's Strandbad Wannsee is based on the plans of the architect Martin Wagner , who in 1915 developed an initial development concept for the previously barely developed bathing area on the banks of the Great Wannsee and in 1927 finally designed a modern “cosmopolitan pool” in the spirit of New Objectivity . Hermann Clajus was the director from 1924 to 1933 . The listed building complex with a length of 540 meters was built from 1929 to 1930 according to designs by the architect Richard Ermisch and the subordinate building councilor Haenisch.
As a result of the global economic crisis , however, only half of the facility (north axis) including the “Lido” beach restaurant, which was intended as the center, was realized. A later extension failed because the National Socialists, who ruled from 1933 , did not like the Wannsee lido because of its modern , but not up-to-date architectural style for the Third Reich .
Jews were generally prohibited from visiting public bathing establishments, except during the 1936 Summer Olympics . From 1942, nude bathing, which had previously been a criminal offense, was officially permitted within designated areas for the first time. During the Second World War , the Todt Organization was housed in some buildings at the Wannsee lido . After 1945, bathing was continued in the Wannsee lido, which had been largely spared from the effects of the war.
Post war and decay
After the war, for large parts of the West Berlin population, the Wannsee lido was the replacement for a trip to the sea, which very few could afford in the early post-war years. The Keerans Range exercise area , which was created by the American occupation troops not far from the lido in the unfinished south curve of the AVUS , caused problems . Ricochets flew all the way to the beach and only a swimmer was shot in the shoulder in July 1951 and finally a seven-year-old girl in the neck on August 5, 1952. The girl barely survived, and the incident was used for propaganda purposes by the East German press. In 1955, a woman was finally hit in the liver in the lido.
Since the 1960s, there has been a progressive structural deterioration and, as a result, a drop in visitors to only around 200,000 bathers annually, for which the following reasons were responsible in particular:
- the generally increasing mass tourism of broad sections of the population,
- the construction of new outdoor pools in many Berlin districts,
- S-Bahn traffic to Wannsee / Nikolassee , which was temporarily restricted in almost three decades of the division of Berlin ,
- the completely inadequate parking space in the vicinity of the lido at peak times,
- steadily increasing admission prices,
- the infrastructure, which has been poorly maintained for decades, and
- the stigma attached to the Wannsee lido of a “ Lido of the poor”.
The renovation that began in the 1980s , however, was soon stopped again due to monument protection - (wrong dimensions of the yellow clinker bricks procured) and ultimately financial difficulties of the highly deficit bathing companies in Berlin. As a result, the building complex continued to deteriorate, so that, for example, the sun terraces on the four halls and sanitary facilities had to be partially closed.
Redevelopment
From 2005 to 2007, a renovation concept supported by the Berlin Monument Protection Foundation was implemented, through which the structures could largely be restored by the lido in May 2007 by the 100th birthday. The costs for this amounted to 12.5 million euros . At the same time, the renovation of the infrastructure from the budget of the Berlin swimming pools, which was not funded by foundation funds, took place.
Investments
terrain
Coming from the entrance, paths lead through a park-like facility to several large exit stairs, on which the individual floors of the buildings with their respective facilities (changing rooms, sanitary facilities, etc.) as well as access to the beach can be reached. Around two thirds of the family beach stretches to the left and right, in the last third in the far north there is the nudist area, which is fenced off with a privacy screen, and at the end there is a pool for the disabled.
building
The entrance building from the 1920s houses the administration of the lido; Until the beginning of the 1950s there was also a seasonally open post office. The two-storey halls connected by a lower and upper promenade deck have changing rooms (collective changing rooms with lockers and seasonally rentable single cabins) as well as sales stands, sanitary facilities (showers and toilets), supervisory, storage and supply facilities (swimming master and lost property office, Beach chair and deck chair rental, first aid station).
Beach
The sandy beach, which is more than a kilometer long and consists of Baltic Sea sand procured by freight wagons from Timmendorfer Strand , extends over a width of around 50 meters. There are also footbridges built into the water at three points. The water access is child-friendly and very flat.
Furnishing
There are 260 rentable beach chairs (60 of them in the nudist area), over 1000 rentable deck chairs and a water slide. The beach and water area (up to the limit buoys ) is used by lifeguards and lifeguards of the German Red Cross and the German Life Saving Society monitored.
Despite the frequent mass reproduction of cyanobacteria ("blue-green algae") and algae bloom , the water quality is usually excellent.
Cultural
With a song about the Wannsee beach under the title Pack your swimming costume was Cornelia Froboess 1951 child star. Her father Gerhard Froboess originally composed the song for the Schöneberg Boys' Choir (text by Hans Bradtke ). But it was initially rejected there. The incident on August 5, 1952, when a girl was injured by an American ricochet in the Wannsee lido, inspired the East German cabaret artist Gina Presgott to write a satirical version of the melody of Froboess' Schlager with the text Close your swimming trunks, let yourself go swimming better be, because the American shoots at Wannsee.
In 2011 and 2012 the Berlin Seefestspiele took place on the site , with productions of the "Magic Flute" by Katharina Thalbach and "Carmen" by Volker Schlöndorff.
literature
- Joachim G. Jacobs, Petra Huebinger: Cosmopolitan baths in Prussia's Arcadia. The Berlin lido Wannsee and its outdoor facilities . In: Die Gartenkunst 16 (2/2004), pp. 383–393.
- Matthias Oloew: 100 years of the Wannsee lido. Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 2007, 144 pages, 55 black-and-white and 25 color illustrations, bound, ISBN 978-3-89479-375-3
- Helmut Engel , Dörte Dohl, Reinhard Demps, Stefan Grell: The Wannsee lido (= masterpieces of Berlin architecture , volume IV). BWV Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag , Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8305-1352-0 .
Web links
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List
- Page to the Strandbad Wannsee of the Berliner Bäder-Betriebe
- Project website of the Berlin Monument Protection Foundation
- In the Wannseebad , comedy 1910, duration: 4'46 ", silent film set to music
Individual evidence
- ^ Revolution in swimming trunks , Tagesspiegel , May 8, 2007
- ↑ a b Matthias Oloew: shots at Wannsee . ( Memento from May 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Der Tagesspiegel from April 30, 2007.
- ↑ Joachim G. Jacobs: The Berlin Strandbad Wannsee and its outdoor facilities, 20th Berlin Monument Day on September 8, 2006 (PDF; 33 kB) ( Memento from February 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Strandbad Wannsee is being renovated. Senate is now giving money , Berliner Zeitung , October 4, 2003
- ↑ At the end of the renovation, there is still a lot to do. - Stiftung Denkmalschutz would like to continue , Der Tagesspiegel , May 8, 2007
- ↑ EU bathing area Strandbad Wannsee - bathing water profile , on berlin.de, accessed on April 2, 2020
Coordinates: 52 ° 26 ′ 19 ″ N , 13 ° 10 ′ 44 ″ E