If you’re someone who loves surfing, but was born into the unfortunate circumstance of “being German,” you don’t have many places to explore your talent. Sure, you could go to the country’s northern coast, but that’s cold and gross. Instead, most German surfers find themselves heading to the city of Munich, where the water pressure of a river under a bridge caused a wave that’s been a hit amongst surfers for decades.

At least, they did until recently. That’s because a German project to clean up the river accidentally turned the “Eisbach Wave” into, well, just a normal river.

Last week, the city government drained and cleaned the river, which they tend to do once per year. However, while the wave quickly returned in previous years, this time, it just didn’t come back.

This has caused something of a crisis in Munich, with the small-but-active surf community putting immense pressure on the local government to fix the issue. The local government has responded by promising both surfers and tourists that the wave will come back soon — once they figure out what happened to it in the first place.

Surfers in Munich are mourning the loss of the Eisbach wave that mysteriously disappeared from a canal after a recent river cleanup.

Authorities are now trying to figure out how to bring it back pic.twitter.com/h5b4ETWOPp

— DW News (@dwnews) November 5, 2025