Post photo: swimming pool | © Anncapictures on Pixabay
Actually, the Neckarhalde could be one of the most beautiful swimming pools in Germany. And probably only when you haven't spent your entire life in Heilbronn do you notice the slow decay of this gem. Without any necessity, this pool has been reduced in size again and again for years and also its infrastructure, wherever possible, dismantled or simply left to the passage of time.
Recently, the voice of Heilbronn was surprised that mass sport is well established in Heilbronn — which I strongly doubt — but that there is hardly any competitive sport. This is certainly due to the fact that in Heilbronn everything that has to do with performance, commitment or civic commitment is being destroyed by a very specific clique from Heilbronn. And so the Neckarhalde also becomes a victim of completely failed Heilbronn city politics and cheating.
Long gone are the days when you came from far away to spend a fun day in the Neckarhalde, times when you opened another pool specifically to enable as many people in Heilbronn as possible to enjoy water sports and leisure activities at the pool — long gone times , where the mayor and city administration still looked after and cared for the well-being of us Heilbronners.
It's been decades since lifeguards or lifeguards only had to worry about whether and where young women were allowed to or had to wear their bikini tops or not.
As already mentioned in several articles (e.g. Heilbronn bathing fun) written, after my return I took care of the condition of the Heilbronn baths again, because I was asked by my friends who were swimming champions and lifeguards, I used myself again as a lifeguard and swimming supervisor and I also helped completely unrepentant city employees messed around. Admittedly, I was a bit spoiled by my time in Ulm, but there they still value order and cleanliness and, above all, that those citizens who want to do sports also get a chance to do so. Unfortunately, in Heilbronn the focus is more on the number and availability of wine bars of all kinds and on getting drunk as comfortably as possible.
This certainly has something to do with education, although in Heilbronn people are proud that "education shouldn't be exhausting" (SPD) and they believe that if you build a kind of "educational Disneyland" (Detlef Stern) at the Europaplatz, that we are something like a university town. Our city certainly has many advantages, but unfortunately modern educational and sports facilities and a real rail connection are not among them!
It is characteristic of our municipal council and the city administration that, on the one hand, the city fountain is deactivated so as not to disturb the wine drinkers on the Neckar and, on the other hand, experts who have already proven their incompetence in other cities are brought to Heilbronn for municipal tasks . Which brings me back to the Neckarhalde.
Today I went to the Neckarhalde with my better half, purely for the sake of staying healthy — which, by the way, is now medically necessary for me. My youngest had already gone ahead because he wanted to do his usual 2 meters or so. When I got there, I recognized immediately at the entrance that we are back in Heilbronn's circumstances, I felt sorry for the lady at the cash register.
Already on the way to the changing rooms and showers I heard the swearing of the bathers, including two (probably) Afghans and a Southeast European, which proves once again that decency, culture and education have nothing to do with ethnicity. The showers were completely overcrowded and also with people who don't know at all how to take a shower or what the function of a shower is - just gross!
On the way to the pool, I then understood a man's comment to his son or grandson that they should leave as soon as possible after showering, because all the pools were overcrowded with people who were obviously mostly just standing around and some were smoking. Even the two closed lanes for swimmers were misused accordingly. I smiled as I watched my youngest try his hand at obstacle swimming.
So the first thing I did was go to the lifeguards, only to find again that some of them didn't even meet the minimum requirements for a lifeguard - that was and always is highly negligent on the part of the city government! The first two didn't understand my request at all, which shows that they have no idea of their task - that's criminal on the part of the city administration!
Then I met a lifeguard who knew what he had to do and certainly could do, but his resigned look gave it all away. The last time I saw a look like that was in African soldiers who, decades ago, also in foreign legionnaires before they became heroes, and you can currently see these looks in Ukrainian soldiers who, lacking armament and equipment, are just waiting until being blown to pieces by Russian shells.
It usually takes wars to get such looks, the mayors and department heads of Heilbronn are obviously able to do this with their employees even in times of peace! In any case, I attest to the person responsible for deploying lifeguards today as being the most disgusting thing I have ever seen outside of war zones and operational areas.
Anyone who treats his staff like that is really the last thing on God's soil! Since I wasn't the only one who wanted to swim (had to!), I tried to get at least one lane halfway free with other swimmers, and here too I have to attest that the problem is not the origin, but entirely and solely an educational problem and in Heilbronn In addition, there is a supervisory problem (!), namely that, starting with the mayor, the city administration permanently refuses to fulfill its original tasks.
Hanging colorful ribbons everywhere for very expensive money, which also further damage the environment, is not enough to manage a city. For this we need people who know what the actual tasks of a city administration are and then also want to fulfill them!
And so I managed a few laps, with better swimmers even letting me go first. But then an overweight boy jumped in my lower back and I, just as I managed to get my breath back, punched his sister in the head, which motivated the father to want to beat me up too. But when I got up, at one end you can stand in the pool, he trolled off, which shows me once again that antisociality and cowardice simply belong together.
So I was able to continue my obstacle swim, but was then stopped when a chunk of feces swam in front of my swimming goggles - which didn't shock me as a lifeguard who grew up in Heilbronn, but finally took the fun out of swimming for today. And my better half soon had enough, only the youngest insisted on completing his distance goal — only the really tough get into the garden.
And so we waited a while longer, shrouded in clouds of smoke, until we all left this tragedy together. And now that I've written these lines, I'm feeling a little better again.
And so I end this article with a comparison — this time with Frankfurt for current events. A big city is characterized by the fact that you at least try to get rid of an OB if you find that he is harming the city. Everything has been done in Heilbronn so that the mayor can continue to run down our actually quite beautiful city.
“Being OB in Freiburg is still my dream job. That doesn't mean lying on the sun deck and having caipirinhas brought to you."
Dieter Salomon, Stuttgarter Zeitung (November 18, 2006)
