A temporary swimming pool paid for with public money and installed outside one of Berlin’s leading State-subsidised theatres has been set aside for “Black communities” on August 14, restricting access solely on the basis of race.
The Volksbad, set up in front of the Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Mitte, central Berlin, is due to operate exclusively for “Black communities” from 12 noon until 6pm.
The session is organised in partnership with Each One Teach One (EOTO), a publicly funded NGO that runs programmes for people of African origin from its base in the African Quarter of Wedding, northern Berlin. EOTO has listed the visit as part of its summer holiday programme for Black children and young people.
After 6pm the pool reopens to the general public. The Volksbad normally runs from 12 noon to 8pm, leaving two hours of general access that day.
The theatre originally advertised the facility as free and “open to all” who wished to cool off in the summer heat, with no identity checks required.
Its website stated that during the reserved period the pool would be “exclusively open for Black communities” and asked the public “to respect this collective self-designation and the associated spaces”.
Following criticism the wording was softened on the evening of August 11 to note that the facility was “reserved for EOTO e.V.”. EOTO itself has described the event as an open-air swimming pool “entirely for us alone”.
Registration for the exclusive hours is handled through the organisation rather than the theatre’s ordinary booking system. The listing invites Black, African and Afro-diasporic people aged between 15 and 27.
The temporary public pool costs around €300,000 and is financed from the Volksbühne’s budget. The theatre itself receives more than €20 million a year in public subsidies.
The 25-metre pool opened on August 7 and is due to remain in place until October 1.
Artistic director Matthias Lilienthal had presented the pool as a practical response to Berlin’s shortage of municipal swimming facilities and as an inclusive urban gesture. The theatre describes it as the first urban initiative of his tenure.
Critics have called the arrangement racial discrimination at a publicly funded site. Alternative for Germany (AfD) said on Facebook that “open racial segregation” was being practised in public space with the money of German taxpayers.
Questions remain about how the racial restriction will be enforced on the day.
Germany’s General Equal Treatment Act (Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz), in force since 2006, prohibits discrimination on grounds of race or ethnic origin in access to goods and services available to the public.
It does allow for so-called “positive action” to compensate for “existing disadvantages”. The German Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency lists “separate visiting hours in swimming pools” as examples of positive action on its website, though this has been typically used for women to swim where certain cultural norms proved to be problematic. Such measures must also be proportionate.
EOTO receives funding from Berlin Senate departments and from the federal “Demokratie leben!” programme, which has supported the organisation since 2017 through the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.
The Volksbühne has not issued a detailed justification beyond the revised programme listing. The Berliner Zeitung said its press enquiry had gone unanswered and that neither Lilienthal nor the two curators of the Volksbad programme had commented.
In the municipality of Porrentruy in the Swiss Jura, foreigners are no longer allowed in the outdoor pool after a series of incidents. https://t.co/gap5jMIPGA
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