Photo: RosenthalAfter the political change: large, modern hotel complexes were built on the promenade near the beach
anniversary
The spa and seaside resort of Swinoujscie did not only attract crowned heads – Marketing worked even then
Im Ostseebad Swinemünde [Swinoujście] There is something to celebrate for the residents and the “old” people of Swinoujscie: two centuries ago, when bathing in the sea became fashionable, the first official bathing season of a Pomeranian Baltic Sea resort was opened here. Under the motto “200 years of Swinoujscie as a health resort”, there are numerous events and exhibitions in the city this year.
One of the fathers of the newly founded Pomeranian Baltic Sea resort was the Saxon Richard Kind, once a district physician, doctor, city councilor and member of the magistrate in Swinoujscie. He recognized early on the healing effects of seaside spa treatments and salt mines on a variety of ailments. The British seaside resorts of Brighton, Heiligendamm and Putbus had shown him the way.
Spectacular bathing pleasure
Kind spread his findings with great enthusiasm not only in Prussia, but also in the other German states. He tirelessly engaged in marketing for the newly emerging Baltic Sea resort – in today’s parlance. He also advertised visits to the seaside resort of Swinemünde in Berlin and Stettin newspapers. His book, “The Seaside Resort in Swinemünde”, which was published a little later, also proved to be an effective advertising tool.
A woman from Stettin was enthusiastic at the time: “The best thing about Swinemünde was of course the bathing, which we all loved indescribably.” Another contemporary, Heinrich Laube, wrote about the new bath: “On wooden piers there are a number of rooms for undressing, and open piers lead a little further into the sea; wrapped in white Templar cloaks, the undressed walk around until the moment comes to jump in. Sicker people, or those who otherwise want to be more separated, can find two large bathing carriages, that is, boxes covered with canvas and standing on four wheels; these are already pushed so far into the sea that one can climb into sufficient depth of water from them.”
A must was the strict separation of the sexes when bathing. For this reason, the beach was divided into five areas. In the far west, near Albeck, there was a separate bath for the fair ladies of Swinemünde. This was said to have always been the most fun and loudest place. To the east of this were the women’s bath and the men’s bath for paying bathers. The male inhabitants of the town bathed near the Swine.
Funny today: Zwickelerlass
To maintain good manners, a no-man’s land several hundred meters wide was left between the beach sections for women and those for men. However, this division of the beach meant that families could be separated when visiting the beach. Only the family bathing area, which was built much later, provided a remedy for this.
In Prussia, it was not until a century later that it was possible to bathe freely from a beach chair. There was a downside here too: the so-called Prussian “gusset decree” prescribed the exact nature of the swimwear, including the gusset.
The beach, about a thousand meters from the town, could be reached with great effort on two sandy paths leading over the dunes, or by hiring a coachman. The Swinoujscie chronicler Robert Burkhardt writes that the first guests included princes and princesses, ministers, high-ranking officers, district administrators and artists of repute. He adds that the few middle-ranking officials, pastors, teachers and merchants from the surrounding area were hardly able to disturb their feudal tone.
New spa district was created
But the competition never slept. In Heringsdorf and Międzyzdroje, the hotels and guest houses were located very close to the beach. Many of Swinoujscie’s guests therefore stayed away and the city fathers had to act. From 1880 onwards, the new spa district gradually grew with the villa district “Swinoujscie-Strand” or “Swinoujscie-Bad”, which is now a treasure of spa architecture and which accounts for a large part of Swinoujscie’s charm. In a relatively short time, more than 300 two to four-storey, mostly white hotels and guest houses were built near the beach by investors from Berlin and Stettin and finally also from Swinoujscie.
Lenné created the spa park
By 1900, Swinoujscie, also known as the Nice of the North, was once again the leader among the Baltic Sea resorts. Guests landed on the Swine by seaplane, landed at the Swinoujscie (Garz) airport, or traveled by ship, train, and later by car. The sea and salt resort of Swinoujscie boasted not only the widest and most beautiful beach on the sunny island of Usedom, but also its exclusive hotels and guest houses, the magnificent spa house, a theater, and its casino. Among the city’s dignitaries who eagerly indulged in gambling in the casino, the Swinoujscie pharmacist Louis Henri Fontane, Theodor Fontane’s father, was one of the most enthusiastic.
The ten-hectare spa park was designed according to the plans of Germany’s most famous garden artist, the general director of the Royal Gardens in Prussia, Peter Joseph Lenné. The Kaiser Friedrich pier, built at great expense in 1898, was unfortunately dismantled after just two decades, leaving only a jetty.
Illustrious guests
For the well-known publicist Carola Stern, born in Ahlbeck, a graduate of the Fontane School in Swinemünde, co-founder and long-time chairwoman of the German section of Amnesty International, Swinemünde was “the epitome of the world”. In her opinion, the city offered something for everyone. As a seaside and saltwater resort, it was more elegant than Heringsdorf and Bansin, as a port it was mentioned in the same breath as Pillau or Kiel, and was a naval base and location of high-ranking officers. The stays of the German and Austrian emperors, the Russian Tsar Nicholas, the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, born Princess Charlotte of Prussia, as well as the King of Portugal, the King of Denmark and the King of Saxony in Swinemünde confirm Carola Stern’s judgment.
In 1940, there were still 54,000 visitors and 295,000 overnight stays. The war put an end to the German Baltic Sea resort of Swinoujscie. On March 12, 1945, all hotels and guest houses east of the spa were bombed by the planes of the 8th US Fleet.
From 1945 to 1950, Germans, Poles and Russians lived in Swinoujscie, and their relationship was greatly strained by recent history. The spa district had been occupied by the Red Army. Soviet officers and their wives recuperated in the villas there. They used the Kaiser Friedrich Warmbad as a banya.
Finally back to spa operations
For years, the Polish administration of Swinoujscie had demanded the return of the spa district in vain. Only talks at the highest political level brought a solution. In 1957, an agreement was concluded between the People’s Republic of Poland and the USSR on the return of the Swinoujscie spa district to the city. According to this, the Soviet garrison was to have left the area by the end of 1959. However, the move was not fully completed until three years later. The Russians even used the imperial barracks in Swinoujscie until they withdrew from the city in 1992.
From 1960 onwards, the spa district
300 million zloty were invested. In the same year, the first 374 Polish guests were able to use the spa area and the beach. In a short time, 60 socialist company holiday homes were built. In 1965, there were 9,000 spa guests.
Upswing since Schengen
Today, the number of overnight stays per year has long since exceeded the one million mark. With its new, fairly large hotels, the city is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, along with Kolberg [Kołobrzeg]Zoppot [Sopot] and Międzyzdroje [Międzyzdroje] one of the most famous and popular seaside resorts on the Polish Baltic coast. Swinoujscie’s peripheral location, which has existed since 1945, is now a thing of the past. The city is connected to the Baltic Sea resort of Heringsdorf by the longest beach promenade in Europe and to Międzyzdroje since 2023 by a road tunnel under the Swine.
Since Poland joined the Schengen Agreement in 2007, there has been a cooperation agreement between Swinoujscie and the neighboring Baltic Sea resort of Heringsdorf, from which both sides benefit. The proximity to the border brings advantages for both Heringsdorf and Swinoujscie: While the hard-working Polish specialists are of existential importance for the spa business in Heringsdorf, the German spa and day guests are indispensable for Swinoujscie.
