(12 Aug 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Berlin – 12 August
1. People swimming in the Spree River
2. People getting into river
3. SOUNDBITE (German) Katrin Androschin, head of the Fluss Bad Berlin project:
"We want the center of Berlin to belong to the people to belong to the residents and here we have unused space, namely the water area, which belongs to everyone and we have cities that are heating up. We have climate change and we have to make sure that people can cool down and we believe that this area here is suitable. The water is good. We have the water quality under control and if the water is bad on the few days a year when it is, then everyone can find out about it."
4. People getting into the river
5. SOUNDBITE (German) Katrin Androschin, head of the Fluss Bad Berlin project:
"Berlin is way behind. There are many European cities that have been doing this for a long time and they say it can be done. It can be done in the Ruhr region, in Amsterdam, in Vienna—people are swimming everywhere. And it has already become the norm. Berlin simply has to follow suit. Because we owe it to the people who live here."
6. People cheering for the protest
7. Man swimming with a giant turtle-shaped inflatable
8. Man jumping from bridge into the river
9. People swimming in the Spree River
10. SOUNDBITE (German) Cathrine Martin, protester:
"I think it’s also much nicer in terms of climate to use the river in the city and just be there on the spot. And in times when cities are getting much hotter, that’s great, of course. When you have a place in the city where you can quickly cool off, where that somehow has such great quality. Just swimming in the city and not having to drive out. And it’s also nice to be able to cool off like that in such an urban place."
11. Man in donut inflatable
12. SOUNDBITE (German) Giddens, singer, songwriter and protester:
"Well, I think Berlin has grown a lot. It’s been 100 years since this ban was put in place. The swimming pools are overcrowded and not up to date. So why shouldn’t it be possible? It works in Munich and everywhere else."
13. People swimming in the Spree River
14. People waving while swimming
STORYLINE:
Hundreds of people on Tuesday jumped again into the Spree River’s slow-moving, greenish water to show that it’s not only clean enough, but also lots of fun to splash and swim in the Berlin’s historic Mitte neighborhood along the world-famous Museum Island.
A group calling itself Fluss Bad Berlin, or River Pool Berlin, has been lobbying for several years to open up the river for swimmers again.
To circumvent the ban, the group registered their collective swim event as an official protest.
The group stresses that they want the people to use the Spree for recreation again, pointing out that the river has been cleaned up thoroughly, and that the water quality has improved in the last decade and is constantly being monitored.
Even city officials in the central Mitte district of Berlin say they would be interested in introducing river swimming again in 2026.
Supporters of lifting the swimming ban also point at Paris, where the Seine River was opened up for swimmers for the Olympic Games last year and will be opened this summer for Parisians.
Swimming there had been banned since 1923.
Only in Berlin, swimming has been continuously prohibited in the Spree since May 1925, when the German capital closed all traditional river pools because the water was deemed too toxic.
These days, the water is clean on most days, except when there’s heavy rain, which leads to some water pollution.
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