Monday, March 23, 2020

CNN Headline: Maria Svarbova finds beauty in socialist-era swimming pools

It is the typical "artsy-fartsy" sugar-coated story showing some ladies in swimsuits in old pools, etc. (click bait) . The real story here is these pools were built during the socialist/communist times in eastern Europe particularly Czechoslovakia. etc. The artist also talks about groups practicing mass gymnastics so and so forth. Below is one of the pictures and here is the link if anyone is interested. Link to the original story.



What the author failed to mention is the fact that the pools and other social amenities might be nice for a short time when they were built but such programs always fail miserably. I wonder why she did not include socialist built swimming pools such as these that was built by some National Socialists just a few years prior to the ones in the story.

Image result for europa europa swimming pool

I forget where this was filmed, but it was a nazi era pool (Europa, Europa 1990)

Image result for Schwimmhalle Finckensteinallee

Schwimmhalle Finckensteinallee in Berlin, German was built in 1938 for the Liebstandarte Adolf Hilter (Hitler's personal bodyguard detachment that later became an elite Waffen SS fighting regiment 1. LSSAH). It is still in use today.


                                                                      Oh, and here are some mass gymnastics.




11 comments:

  1. Well Dang! I learned to swim at the other indoor 50 meter pool in the former SS-Junkerschule Bad Tölz, in 1955. Dad was 10th SF at the time. Cool!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is awesome. Any pictures?
      Years ago when the internet first began, there were a lot of "then and now" sites pertaining to Germany during the years between 1933-45. Nowadays, not so much.

      Delete
  2. You're right. Interesting sugarcoasting there...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As you well know NFO, those LibComs can be very sneaky!

      Delete
  3. I've been in that pool! Bad Tolz in Beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  4. When I was a young Lieutenant in West Germany near the end of the cold war I attended a Water Safety Instructor class in the pool Hitler had built in (West) Berlin to train his Olympic team. Knowing that he had probably been in there at some point was a little bit creepy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thought that the Schwimmhalle Finckensteinallee looked like the pool I swam in in West Germany but wasn't certain. You know sometimes you remember things a little differently over the years. After doing a little research, I determined that it was indeed the one. Also, the story we heard about the pool wasn't quite accurate.

      Delete
    2. I discovered that part of the reason I wasn't certain about this pool, is that the building had been renovated and restored. This article mentions that they undid some of the things the Army did when they took over the building. https://www.ignant.com/2016/07/13/schwimmhalle-finckensteinallee-berlin/

      Delete
  5. I sent a photo of "Uncle Sepp" reading a paper in Paris to a friend in Dallas. She commented, "My, what well-decorated Officer!" She'd been a model in Germany...

    ReplyDelete
  6. SS-Oberst-Gruppenfuhrer Dietrich was a highly decorated offizer.

    ReplyDelete

Leave us a comment if you like...