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Germany's Sauna Obsession

Expose Yourself to the Culture

Germans are passionate sauna-goers. It's a place where society becomes truly classless. But when you go, don't forget your birthday suit.

Jari Jetsonen

Germans have become almost as sauna obsessed as the Finns.

The answer is, not with her hammer and chisel, helping to destroy one of the most potent symbols of the 20th century. Rather, she was sweating it out in the sauna on her weekly trip with a girlfriend.

Perhaps a meaningless anecdote, but it serves to illustrate the importance the sauna ritual now has in the life of many Germans. Over 30 million are regular sauna-goers, while nationwide there are an impressive 2,300 public saunas, 3,800 sweat rooms in sport and fitness clubs, 5,100 more in hotels and around 1.5 million in private homes.

Of course, the Germans are still not nearly as fanatical as the Finns, who even go so far as to incorporate saunas into their nuclear power plants. But Germany now boasts the second greatest number of saunas in Europe.

In fact, it's thanks to the Finns that Germans learned the pleasure of being artificially overheated and sweating copiously at all. The breakthrough came in 1936 when Finnish sportsmen participating in the Berlin Olympic Games insisted on having a "saunahaus" built in the Olympic village, arguing that their physical prowess would otherwise be undermined. German newspaper reports on this strange phenomenon led to the start of the nation's love affair with heat and sweat.

And saunas, conveniently, provided the skin-loving Germans yet another excuse to get naked. Much to the chagrin of the rather-more-prudish Anglo-Saxon world, German saunas tend to be unisex -- and clothing is frowned upon. But if you're not quite ready to strip off and join them, you'd do well to see a new film by Berlin-based Irish director Eoin Moore.

"Im Schwitzkasten" -- literally "In the Sweat Box" (English title: "No Sweat") -- celebrates the trend and demonstrates just what a leveller the sauna can be.

Wrapped in tiny towels, the successful businessman and the welfare recipient are indistinguishable from each other. In the microcosm of the steam room, all worlds come together -- the frustrated intellectual, the esoteric do-gooder, the would-be entrepreneur, the overworked boss, the bureaucrat and the long-term unemployed.

Every Thursday the "sauna club" meets in the trendy Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg to sweat out their worries together. The high point of the ritual is when the bankrupt, beer-bellied sauna owner, Jost, comes in for the Aufguss (literally "infusion"), which involves throwing water on to the wood fire and fanning the steam in the faces of the expectant sauna-goers with his spinning towel.

"Im Schwitzkasten" has been interpreted as a metaphor for the way in which the whole country is feeling the heat right now amidst its economic and structural worries. Simply put, the sauna, with its mountain pine warmth and the comfort it offers of "sweating it out" with your neighbour, provides protection from the growing social chill outside.

But not for long. As Norbert, a neo-liberal political speech writer who ends up being dragged from the "sweat box" after suffering a heart attack, puts it: "We just get flabbier and flabbier, and fear drips from our every pore".

If you decide to take the plunge, I can personally recommend the Badeschiff -- a converted tugboat on the River Spree which is a sauna half the year round and a swimming pool the other. The variety of beautifully renovated Art Nouveau saunas in Stadtbad Neukölln will probably give you the most classical Berlin sauna experience in fantastic surroundings. If you are still squeamish about baring all in a unisex setting, then an Arabic-style Hamam -- such as Sultan Hamam on Bulowstrasse -- which has strict female/male-only sessions, might be more your style. Although more of a steam room than a sauna, it is for some the preferable way to chill out. Open those pores and let it all hang out!

This item was contributed by Kate Connolly, the Berlin correspondent for the Telegraph, a British daily. You can read her blogs from Germany at Telegraph.co.uk.

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