We are in the year 2023 AD All of Germany is obsessed with the question: Should women be allowed “topless” in outdoor pools? Whole Germany? No! A city populated by laid-back Palatinate residents doesn’t stop resisting prudery and heated gender debates.
Zweibrücken is the name of the small town deep in western Germany. So deep that it is often overlooked. This was also the case from a news agency that recently conducted a survey among Rhineland-Palatinate open-air pool operators as to whether they – like Saarbrücken in particular – want to allow women to bathe bare-chested just like men. Which almost all the cities surveyed rejected. Because it was already too late that day to reach anyone at the Zweibrücker pool operator (Stadtwerke), Merkur first supplemented the agency text with the help of a look at its own archive. And lo and behold: when we last reported twenty years ago, that was already allowed in Zweibrücken what is being fought for or prevented elsewhere in mostly heated controversies. Here is the relevant paragraph from Article 2003 in italics: “The bathing regulations make no mention of topless or not,” explains the lifeguard. The “getting naked” would in no way be regarded as arousing public nuisance. Female swimmers are welcome to move freely in the pool. They should only put their tops back on when they go to the kiosk.
The one recently quoted in Merkur current house and bathing regulations leaves room for interpretation as to whether the Zweibrücker outdoor pool staff tolerates “topless” women or not – whether it falls under “good manners” or not. Literally it says in the bathing regulations: “The bathers must refrain from anything that is contrary to good morals and the maintenance of security, peace and order.”
The Merkur therefore asked the municipal utilities (which took over the outdoor pool from the city in 2020): Is the liberal interpretation of the house and bathing regulations with regard to “topless” still relevant today?
Yes, the municipal utilities answered: women can decide for themselves how they dress, whether with a bikini, bathing suit, burkini or topless. Nothing is known of complaints from guests about inappropriate clothing or non-clothing.
The trend already observed in the Merkur article in 2003 – there are fewer topless women than in the past (headline: Bare bosoms no longer flash) – has probably increased: According to the municipal utility, women hardly ever make use of the bare-breasted Baden option, women are rarely “topless” on the sunbathing lawn. And burkinis didn’t matter at all.
On the other hand, what has changed massively in the past twenty years is the social climate. What used to be taken for granted and hardly bothered anyone is now denigrated as “gender gaga” and “woke madness”. And when – as in many cities, including Saarbrücken – it’s the Greens who demand equal rights for all sexes in the pools, the people’s soul boils over.
Anyone who doesn’t like these waves of excitement now has an alternative that is quite unique in Rhineland-Palatinate: in the Zweibrücken outdoor pool, as was common decades ago, everyone can still find happiness according to their own style.