The Grand Spas of Central Europe - A History of Intrigue, Politics, Art, and Healing

The Grand Spas of Central Europe leads readers on an irresistible tour through the grand spa towns of Central Europe—fabled places like Baden-Baden, Bad Ems, Bad Gastein, Karlsbad, and Marienbad. Noted historian David Clay Large follows the grand spa story from Greco-Roman antiquity to the present, focusing especially on the years between the French Revolution and World War II, a period in which the major Central European Kurorte (“cure-towns”) reached their peak of influence and then slipped into decline. Written with verve and affection, the book explores the grand spa towns, which in their prime were an equivalent of today’s major medical centers, rehab retreats, golf resorts, conference complexes, fashion shows, music festivals, and sexual hideaways—all rolled into one. Conventional medicine being quite primitive through most of this era, people went to the spas in hopes of curing everything from cancer to gout. But often as not “curists” also went to play, to be entertained, and to socialize. In their heyday the grand spas were hotbeds of cultural creativity, true meccas of the arts. High-level politics was another grand spa specialty, with statesmen descending on the Kurorte to negotiate treaties, craft alliances, and plan wars. This military scheming was just one aspect of a darker side to the grand spa story, one rife with nationalistic rivalries, ethnic hatred, and racial prejudice. The grand spas, it turns out, were microcosms of changing sociopolitical realities—not at all the “timeless” oases of harmony they often claimed to be. The Grand Spas of Central Europe holds up a gilt-framed but clear-eyed mirror to the ever-changing face of European society—dimples, warts, and all.

Introduction Chapter 1: Spas and Spa Culture from the Greco-Roman World to the Grand Tour The Ancient West Decline and Resurrection The Grand Tour Chapter 2: Baden-Baden: The “Summer Capital of Europe” Becoming Baden-Baden Faites Votre Jeu: The Age of Bénazet August Granville’s Baden-Baden The “Jewish Question” Getting There The Revolutions of 1848–1849 Chapter 3: Muses in the Water Two Titans at the Fountains: Goethe and Beethoven Scribble, Squander, Soak: Romantic-Era Writers in Baden-Baden The Sound of Music Chapter 4: Roulettenburg: Russian Writers at the Grand German Spas Troubled in Soul (and Bowels): Nikolai Gogol in Baden-Baden Ivan Turgenev’s Path to the West Turgenev versus Tolstoy Ménage à Trois on the Oos Fedor Dostoevsky in German Spa Land Showdown in Baden-Baden Do Svidaniya to Deutschland Chapter 5: Politics on the Promenade A Line in the Water The German Question(s) Five Balls over the Waters: Bismarck’s Alliance System Vicky, Willy, Nicky, Bertie, and Franz Josef Chapter 6: Modernization and Its Discontents Innovations Medicalization: “It’s Not Just about the Waters Anymore!” A Jewish Space Taking the Waters with Marx/Twain Chapter 7: Trouble in Paradise: Spa-Town Life from World War I to the Triumph of Hitler The Grand Spas at War German Spa Towns and the Weimar Republic Rump Austria Slouching toward Berlin: Karlsbad and Marienbad in the Twenties and Thirties Chapter 8: Brown Waters: Grand Spas under the Third Reich Nazis and Spas “Germany’s Visiting Card” “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer” A Coda: Badenheim 1939 Wartime Chapter 9: A New Beginning Postwar Recovery Epilogue: The Grand Spas Today Acknowledgments Principal Sources and Suggestions for Further Reading Index About the Author