Freisebad, Görlitz

Freisebad is a former bathing establishment on Dr.-Kahlbaum-Allee in the city center of Görlitz in Saxony.

In 1887, Walter Freise, a Magdeburg medical councillor, founded the cold-water sanatorium on the Promenade opposite the Tivoli and not far from the Kahlbaum'schen Nervenheilanstalt. It was one of three bathing establishments in the city, along with the Hoffmann'schen Badeanstalt on Lindenweg and the Zentralbad in Hospitalstraße.

Freise was an assistant physician at the hospital on Berliner Strasse in Görlitz. In 1885 he opened a medical practice on the Promenade. At that time, the promenade was a popular strolling route for the citizens of Görlitz and led from the city past the city park to the blockhouse at the Neisse viaduct.

Freise's sanatorium offered tub, steam and hot-air baths, as well as brine, spruce needle and herbal baths, and mud baths in Franzensbad mud. Electric light and carbonic acid baths completed the offer. From the beginning, a swimming pool was also available to visitors, designed for both non-swimmers and swimmers. It was seven meters wide, 15 meters long and 2.80 meters deep at the deepest point, with the pool rising to the opposite side.

Walter Freise managed the spa until 1905. Due to the high financial losses, he handed over the bath to an association, which continued to operate the bath until 1919. Despite the subsidies that the city had been paying since 1901, the baths could not make a profit. The association finally offered the bath to the city for purchase, which continued the operation from April 1, 1920.

Even after the Second World War, the Freisebad continued to operate and most recently housed a steam bath, sauna, showers, tub baths, a solarium and the swimming pool. The city closed the Freisebad on March 31, 1996.

In 2009, the city had the large chimney on the back secured and the roof and roof drainage provisionally renewed, but according to the city, the roof needed a complete renewal and the bathroom a basic renovation, which the city, however, cannot afford financially.

In June 2009, a concert by the band Funk de Nite was to take place at the Freisebad under the motto unerhörte Orte of the 14th Jazz Days Görlitz, but this was moved to the old machine factory of the Waggonbau. In the same year, however, the bath opened its doors for the Day of the Open Monument. It served as a filming location for the movie Grand Budapest Hotel.

There were plans to reactivate the bath and the former II Medical Clinic as a competence center for the care of dementia patients and also to make the bath accessible to the citizens again. However, the plans were on hold in 2011.