About water – Charlottenburg Stadtbad: The flowers of evil

“Rriffes not good! Do not make clean bodies in front! ”The lady’s post -soviet accent lets me understand delayed. Her head points to the nearby swimming pool, where a man is planning at the flat end. When we pulled shoes, we had just found how good we feel like swimming, showering and blow -drying.

The Stadtbad Charlottenburg Is pretty brick red on the outside, decorated with hissing fish heads and Art Nouveau ornations, it looks like a castle inside. A broad course of cross vault leads through the building opened in 1898, which once made all Charlottenburgers refreshment in tub, shower or bass, including soap and towel.

After climbing a steep staircase, you land directly in the bathroom. It gets tight. A narrow passage leads to the women’s curve along the Old hallMake the signs: ban on photography, shoes out, full body cleaning! Moving, showering to take the corner, and the other end of the hall is reached, you get into the modest small pelvis with its three 25-meter tracks along with integrated non-swimmer.

Over water

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Anne Hahn is the author of novels and non -fiction and swims through the waters of the world for »ND«.

At the Laying training If I rush past underwater beams, the metal pool shines milky. When it gets fuller, I swim freestyle back and legs and glide pleasantly slow. I look up and sigh. The Januaryblues lurks outside. Due to the steel-glass construction of the ceiling, gray light falls, the white tiles flire, and the young man in front of me looks dreamily in the pond on the mural.

“The one, drunk by breathed wedding screens. Go on the streams, they lamen through the grove, «I recite an hour later in the Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection, which in the former Egyptian museum is located at Charlottenburg Castle. Here, works of art will be under the motto of this year »Evil flowers«Showed. The rooms, the pictures and installations are mysterious. Charles Baudelaires cycle “Les Fleurs du times” Contains over 100 poems – also this: “damn women”.

While I look at flowers, resemble the genitals, and photos pass that Phallus -like shrubs In front gardens from stones, I think of the bare girls on the murals in the city pool. »And stammer the embers of the shy childhood. And scratch names in the young trees. ”When the pictures were attached instead of the former skylights during the last renovation, nudist and warbade days attracted the people to the old hall of Krummen Straße 10; You frolicked under the painted landscapes, herons and mermaids.

Since the beginning of the Charlottenburg city bathing, the first German women’s swimming club, the Berlin Mermaid (founded in 1893), has been located here. They organized the opening revue, competitions and festivals in the old hall, trained from 1974 until their closure in the New hall And now in other baths in Berlin. Episode 38 of the podcast “Chlorine chants” reports: one of the mermaids can smell under water – I understand and nod compilation of the older lady.