Bathing paradise ten minutes from Berlin: the Kristall-Therme in Ludwigsfelde
Photo: imago/Funke Photo Services
It’s chirping, palm leaves rustle, a warm breeze hits me. I open my eyes and see shaggy grass behind foggy windows. A smoker stands under a lantern, his beer belly sticking out of his bathrobe. Gray winter lurks outside, not a palm tree in sight. We are ten minutes away from Berlin-Südkreuz, my companion wraps her towel around herself, points to the box and disappears from the glass booth with a curse. Grills shrill evenly.
Die Crystal thermal baths is just a walk in the forest from the Birkengrund stop. Three naked marble graces greet us in a white pavilion in the Citizens’ Forest Park, silver paint running down their thighs. Ludwigsfelde is located just beyond the Berlin city limits. The town has been accessible by train since 1844. It grew out of a deserted area in the fields of Ernst Ludwig von Gröben, and for a long time retained a double-digit population and only with Locust plagues or earthquake made a name for itself until 1936 Daimler-Benz aircraft engine factory hidden in the nearby forest was built. During the Second World War it employed many thousands of prisoners of war and Eastern workers, most recently women from the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Above water
private
Anne Hahn is an author of novels and non-fiction books and swims the waters of the world for “nd”.
After 1945, dismantling and rededication followed. In 1965, Ludwigsfelde received city status and manufactured half a million W50 trucks by the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Together with the Ifa workers Mercedes-Benz from Stuttgart developed the Ludwigsfelde industrial park, which today produces the T2, Vario and Sprinter. The Ludwigsfeld thermal baths of the Kristall-Bäder Group have the largest outdoor brine pool in Europe, whose 3.5 percent brine is delivered from Lower Saxony several times a month in tank trucks.
My cupboard number 966 gives an idea of the dimensions of the thermal baths. Bars, restaurants, loungers and bathers crowd the noisy circuit around the indoor pools. I am spoiled for choice: one of the many Saunas visit, naked Explore the water landscape or go to the sports pool? I allow myself to be pushed a few steps and see the sign: “Lemon sauna”. The die-hard lemon fan in me cheers, getting out of my slippers and coat and into the wooden cubby. Three surrounding steps, around 95 degrees, a handful of people.
As soon as I start to sweat while I look lovingly at lemon slices that are steaming in a mesh above the sauna heater in the middle, an employee enters the room and gives us two infusions and waving a fan. Filled with lemon, I go into the baking soda bath, test out the waterfall and grotto, let myself be massaged by the bubbles and jets, swim in the outdoor pool, float in the current channel and under fountains, float in the »Toten More« Brandenburg on the surface of the water and finally decide to swim a few lengths in the adjacent sports pool, which seems surprisingly quiet with only two school classes learning to swim. A sports teacher with a whistle enters the bathroom.
I later catch my partner at the Zumba aqua class and give her a choice: fog cave or separate relaxation room?