Strandbad Wannsee

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Strandbad Wannsee

 

Grunewald - Foto Wikipedia

Strandbad Wannsee is a beach located on the eastern shore of Lake Großer Wannsee, a large bay of the Havel River in Berlin. It is known as Europe's largest lake bath and has been a bathing beach for Berliners for more than 100 years.

Happy beachgoers

Some interesting facts about Strandbad Wannsee:

Location:
Strandbad Wannsee is located at Wannseebad Way 25, Berlin,

Opening hours:
It is open from Monday to Sunday from 09:00 to 19:00.

Facilities:
It has more than 1 kilometer long (1,275 meters), 80 meters wide beach filled with light sand brought from the Baltic Sea. There is also a playground with all kinds of play and game options.

History:
Strandbad Wannsee was opened in 1907. About ten percent of the area is FKK zone, which means for the cultivation of "Freikörperkultur" or nudism. It is also a recreational area with a park.

Jagdschloss Grunewald

The origin of the beach area, however, goes back to the beginning of the 1900s. The city of Berlin had, since the unification in 1871, experienced enormous growth, both in population and in new buildings. Large housing projects were planned and realized and these squeezed the working population tightly together in small apartments with little light and less fresh air. Therefore, people tried to escape into nature when they had the opportunity. Favorite escapes for those who could not afford to go on holiday to the Baltic Sea were the nearby lakes. Particularly suitable was the Wannsee with its wide, shallow and sandy eastern coast.
Due to the moral standards of the time, public bathing, especially with women and men together, was illegal. In 1907, the administration of the Brandenburg Teltow district southwest of Berlin, then the known authority over the area, gave in to public pressure and officially allowed bathing on a 200-meter stretch of beach. Behavior was strictly regulated, down to details of dress laid down by police regulation.

Strandad Wannsee

Construction began on May 8, 1907. In 1909, a lease was signed between the royal government and a local businessman, Frankenthal from Nikolassee. Freibad Wannsee, as it was called, then consisted of one beach each for men and for women, both 65 meters long, separated by the family section, which offered 350 meters of beach. The sections were separated by planking. Tents, erected at the foot of the steeper slope towards the forest, served as changing facilities.


After the First World War, the importance of the beach increased, not only among the people of Berlin, but also for the surrounding communities. After the end of the private lease, the municipality of Berlin took over, and the company became part of the municipal forest service, due to its location in Grunewald. In the same year, 1924, the tents were replaced by thatched pavilions and the previously lacking sanitary facilities were improved. The area was extended to 800 meters and was open year-round, making the facilities available to winter bathers and skaters. Attendance increased, especially after the S-Bahn from nearby Potsdam to Erkner was opened. One year there were 900,000 visitors.

In 1926 the new nearby stations, Nikolassee and Wannsee, facilitated access to the beach and the existing facilities were no longer sufficient. Plans to erect a permanent building on the site had been mooted as early as 1910 by Martin Wagner, later municipal director of construction, but had been delayed by the First World War. Now the municipality of Berlin tasked the same Martin Wagner and colleague Richard Ermisch, both employees of the city administration and experienced in public construction, to plan a large-scale improvement project. Construction began in 1929, and the opening of the new buildings took place already a year later in 1930.

The Great Depression compromised the execution of the plans Wagner and Ermisch had made. Initially, the budget had been an amount of 5 million Reichsmark, which was to be spent on a further five of the two-storey halls, as well as a large, circular main restaurant, a pier with a café, a marina. and an open-air theatre. In addition, a medical bath, a kindergarten and a pension were thought of. Of all this, only the existing complex of four structures was realized, and only after the municipality visited the site to see that most of the scaled-down project was already built and would not require much additional work. However, an additional 2 million Reichsmarks were added.

In the following years, the number of visitors increased enormously, not least because Berliners wanted to see their new public bath. However, the rise of Nazism with associated violent fights between different political groups on the beach meant that more and more people gradually refrained from visiting the area.
In 1938, Jews were forbidden to enter and the non-Nazi staff were replaced by party members. Furthermore, the entertainment was provided by orchestras from the Wehrmacht and the SA.

During the Second World War, the beach park became a very welcome distraction in the dark times.

 

Berlin Coat of Arms

Berlin's coat of arms approx. year 1700


Interesting places

A B C

"Beelitz-Heilstätten" - Old military hospital

Bendlerblock" - Memorial and museum

"Berlin Untervelten" - Berlin's "Underworld"

"Bernauer Straße" - About the Berlin Wall etc.

"Bornholmer Straße - Former border crossing east/west

"Boxhagener Platz - Green area and flea market"

D E F

"Europacenter" - Shopping center etc.

Flakturm Humboldthain" - Bunker facility WW2

"Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg" - Busy airport

"Flughafen Berlin Tempelhof" - Recreational area.

"Escape tunnels between East and West Berlin - Kold krig

"Friedhof Invalidenhof - Soldiers Cemetery

G H I J K

"Old Danish Embassy"  - Tiergarten

Gedenkstätte Plötzensee" - Memorial

"Glienicker Brücke" - Dividing East/ West

- "Pallasstrasse bunker" Bunker i centrum

" Weissensee Jewish Cemetery - Jewish cemetery

Karlshorst - German-Russian Museum"

L M N O P Q R S

"Majakowskiring"
– GDR elite in Pankow

Prenzlauer Berg"

- Memorial

"Schöneberg town hall"  - JFK tale"

"Schwerbelastungs-
körper"
- Pressure gauge

" Friedhof Grunewald-Forst - Cemetery for suicides

SS residences – Zehlendorf

S T U V X Y Z

"Stasimuseum" - Stasimuseum

Teufelsberg" - NSA in Grunewald

"Tiergarten" - The Nordic Embassies"

"Tiergarten - Siegessäule" 67 meter tall victory column

"Villa Riefenstahl - Leni Riefenstahls House

"Zionskirche Prenzlauerberg - Where Bonhoeffer preached

 

Recreational areas:

"Grunewald"
- Berlins largest green areas

Strandbad Wannsee"
- Europe's largest lake bath

"Tempelhofer Park"
- Formerly Tempelhof Airport

"Tiergarten"
- Berlin's largest city park

"Volkspark Friedrichshein - Recreational area

"Volkspark Jungfernheide" - Recreational area

Food and drinks:

"Biergarden am Neuen See" in the Tiergarten.

Biergarden "Prater" - From 1837 and the oldest

Biergarden "Schleusenkrug", "Biergarden in Tiergarten".

"Mustafa’s Gemüse Kebap" - known all over Berlin

"Restaurant Zillemarkt" Unfortunately closed by now

"Zur letzten Instanz" - Oldest restaurant in Berlin

               

Berlin at War