Kurbad Jungborn

Kurbad Jungborn stands beside the Fulda in Kassel’s Unterneustadt quarter. Once Sinning’s river swimming bath, it opened around 1880 as one of the first Kassel sites to offer a ladies’ section. Separate wooden pontoons held changing cabins for men and women. By the late 19th century a warm-water annexe supplied tub, steam and shower baths heated by a large wood- and briquette-fired oven that stored hot water in a tower. The bathhouse began the modern bathing habit in Kassel with the slogan ‘Every German one bath a week’. Its eight cabins with terrazzo floors and private tubs were costly at 50 Pfennig for half an hour, yet welcomed by households without bathrooms. After public Volksbäder appeared, Sinning’s closed in 1923 and Hellmut Ulbricht reopened it as Kurbad Jungborn, a medical bath clinic that operated until 1998. The building survived the 1943 Edertalsperre flood caused by Operation Chastise and is the sole survivor on the river wall. Today the restored site houses a museum of river bathing history. Two original cabins have been rebuilt, one in 1930s style with bidet and stove. Exhibits include zinc tubs, a wheeled wooden tub, early porcelain taps, a portable heated sitz bath from the 1880s and Carl Dittmann’s wave-swing baths. A 1930s bathroom and miniature tub samples show how bathing changed in Kassel, while the café and riverside terrace offer views across the Fulda.