Freibad Kammerwoog
THE ABANDONED POOL IN GERMANY
‘Freibad Kammerwoog’ in Idar-Oberstein was opened on July 16, 1960. The outdoor swimming pool was eventually closed in 2004.
Even before the outdoor pool was built, the people of Oberstein used this area to cool off on hot summer days. The swimming pool was built during the year 1958 with funding of the German Armed Forces, the Ministry of Culture and the Rhineland Swimming Association.
With more than 50 thousand visitors a year, the Kammerwoog pool was a famous place for the local people. The pool processed river water to create clean swimming water through various steps.
Highway B41
In 1966 the site was partly demolished, before it was almost twice as large. This was done because of the expansion of highway B41 that encloses half the site. As a result a huge stone bridge was built on the other side of the pool domain. Eventually the open-air pool was closed down by the city, it was too expensive to maintain two pools in one town. Plans for a new pool were made and Kammerwoog closed its doors. Today the old pool is surrounded by hills and water, it could only be reached by the stone bridge. Since the bridge has been demolished, the pool is taken over by nature.
I visited ‘Freibad Kammerwoog’ in 2011. Follow this link for more abandoned swimming pools around Europe.
