Berlin's Wonderful Bath House
IHAVE visited most of the leading bathing establish. ments in Europe and some of them I have described in the Spectator, but I have never seen a more wonderful bath house than the famous Stadtbad Mitte in Berlin, which was opened less than a year ago, and which claims to be the largest indoor bathing establishment in the world.
Every English visitor to Berlin should see the Mitte Bad. It is an experience which he will never forget. This great six-story building, situated in one of Berlin's poorer districts is a monument to German efficiency and a standing reminder that Berlin's city elders appreciate the importance of Mens sana in corpore sano- and are determined that the dwellers in their city shall be afforded opportunities of improving their health by water and sun bathing. We wish every member of the London County Council and of every Town Council in Great Britain would go on a pilgrimage of the bath houses of Berlin. If they did, they would return to this country covered with shame at the realization that our public baths are forty years behind the times.
The Mitte Bad shows what can be done to provide healthy and hygienic recreation for the populace of working-class districts at a reasonable figure, and the -records of daily attendance prove how greatly the facilities offered. are appreciated. The architecture is of the best incident' school, reminiscent of many of the recent build- ings in Scandinavia. You enter, through swing doors, a large . vestibule with white mosaic floor and white walls. Off the central hall are the various administrative offices and a hairdresser's shop where the fair sex have their hair shingled, " new cut," water-waved, permanent waved or their "eyebrows and eyelashes dyed" (augenbraunen and ivimpern farben) for one shilling and sixpence. A gym- nastic instructor is in attendance and " gym " classes arc organized at various hours in the day.
Bathing tickets for adults cost 44d. and for children 2 id. Combined tickets for light, sun, and swimming cost 7d. Swimming instructors can be obtained for 10s. per quarter or at half-rates for children. The standard of performance of the average bather has improved very considerably since the opening of the bath. At the time of my visit during a week-day morning I was impressed by the excellence of the diving. A fat woman walked up to the high diving board, turned her back to the water and took a perfect header backwards ; a few seconds later a slim youth turned three somersaults before diving into the water. There were crowds of all ages and of both sexes—there is continuous mixed bathing—learning to swim at the shallow end of the bath, but the number of really expert divers I saw seemed to me to be much greater than it would have been in an English public bath. The bath house remains open daily from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Saturdays to 8 p.m. There must have been one hundred people bathing at the time of my visit but at the weekends bathers are numbered by hundreds. The men wear slips and the women ordinary bathing suits. One side of the great central swimming pool, sixty-six yards long and twenty-five yards wide, is of glass which can be opened in the summer and around the pool on the first floor is a large gallery for spectators.
I asked the guide who was placed at my disposal by the Magistrat's office of the City of Berlin, if any difficulty was experienced in keeping the water free from infection in view of the large number of users. He told me that by changing the water every four to six hours and by mixing it with chlorine any possibility of infection had been prevented. As in the large public baths in Vienna—which I described in the Spectator in October 1929—all bathers are obliged to go to the " soaping " rooms before they enter the swimming bath ; a very wise precaution. The water is kept throughout the year at the same heat, 70° Fahrenheit. On the upper floors are the dressing rooms, gymnastic rooms (provided with a piano for musical drill), private baths (ordinary and shower), and finally medical baths which deserve a paragraph to themselves.
The Medical, Turkish and Vapour baths remind one of many of the leading Continental watering establishments except for their cheapness. The patient of moderate means is sent by his doctor here with written instructions, stating the treatment he is to undergo and these he hands to a skilled attendant. The poor Berliner of either sex is thus afforded the opportunity of having most of the benefits of a visit to a watering place without leaving Berlin. I walked through these large medical bathing halls and found various treatments of water application and massage being given. In one hall poor crippled children were being treated under the direction of a lady doctor.
With a view to adding to its revenue the swimming bath is let out on different evenings to the various private Frei-Korper Kultur (naked culture) clubs. Strangers are not admitted to this nude bathing, but it is becoming increasingly popular throughout Central Europe and its adherents now number some hundreds of thousands. I tried to form an opinion as to the effect it had, if any, on contemporary morals, but I was given differing replies. The general opinion seemed to be that it had not had a deleterious effect and one German friend, a mother of a family, told me that she permitted her children to go and that it had had no bad effect ; that strict supervision was exercised and qualified inspectors and instructors of gymnastics were always in attendance. If strangers properly vouched for desire to take part in Frei-Korper Kultur they must also undress ; no one wearing clothes is permitted to mix among those who are bathing and doing gymnastics in a state of nature.
The dressing rooms are the last word in hygienic construction. They are white cubicles round an internal well, built somewhat like the cells in British prisons. Each dressing room has two doors. The intending bather enters by the back door and on undressing emerges through the front door, for no one wearing boots is permitted to walk along the tiled passages leading to the baths.
The medical section is also equipped with electric and light baths and the sun shining through the stained glass windows added a welcome touch of colour. On the large flat roof is a properly equipped sun bath and here on numerous couches sun bathing is an increasingly popular pastime during the summer. After visiting every section of the upstairs portion of the great bathing establishment I was taken to the floors below the street level, which reminded me of going down into the hold of an ocean liner, to see the vast machinery required for taking the iron out of the water before it was pumped into the swimming pool, for adding the chloride to the water for purposes of disinfection, and for heating.
An hour and a half was all too short a time to visit this marvel of municipal enterprise. As I drove back to my hotel in the Unter den Linden I wondered how long it would be before the capital of the British Empire possessed anything comparable to the bath I have described. Not being a politician I suppose I should not attempt to offer advice to our rulers. But I thought to myself that if I were a British Mussolini, instead of spending £60,000,000 per annum in doles which show nothing in return, I would spend this sum in employi g the workers of both sexes to perform some work of use to the community as a whole such as slum clearance. And I would earmark £3,000,000 per annum in erecting bathing-houses, such as the one I have described, in all our large cities. They would return a wonderful dividend in healthier bodies, and happier human beings. But being just an ordinary mortal I shall be told that I know nothing about economics and that my suggestion is impracticable. To which I must reply, greatly daring, if it costs £60,000,000 a year to produce no tangible results, surely it would be good business to spend £3,000,000 a year and give Great Britain the best bathing establishments in the world.
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