State socialist bodies: East German nudism from ban to boom

Journal of Modern History

Volumn 79, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 48-79

  McLellan, Josie ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34047251166     PISSN: 00222801     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/517544     Document Type: Review

References (202)

1. See, e.g., Alexander Ferguson, "Germany's Divide Exposed in Underpants War," The Independent, August 25, 1992.
2. Ina Merkel's excellent article, "Die Nackten und die Roten: Zum Verhältnis von Nacktheit und Öffentlichkeit in der DDR," Mitteilungen aus der kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschung 18, no. 36 (1995): 80-108,
3. focuses on nudity in East German film and in the monthly Das Magazin.
4. Uli Linke, German Bodies: Race and Representation after Hitler (New York and London, 1999), 72.
5. Günter Gaus, Wo Deutschland liegt (Hamburg, 1983), 156. Although he did not specifically refer to nudism, Gaus saw leisure activities such as sailing, collecting antiques, singing in choirs, and allotment gardening as spaces relatively free from state control, in which a large proportion of East German life took place.
6. Robert Edelman, "A Small Way of Saying 'No': Moscow Working Men, Spartak Soccer, and the Communist Party, 1900-1945," American Historical Review 107, no. 5 (2002): 1441-74.
7. See here also the highly influential work of Alf Lüdtke and Thomas Lindenberger on Eigen-Sinn: Alf Lüdtke, Eigen-Sinn, Fabrikalltag, Arbeitererfahrungen und Politik vom Kaiserreich bis in den Faschismus (Hamburg, 1993);
8. Thomas Lindenberger, "Herrschaft und Eigen-Sinn in der Diktatur: Das Alltagsleben der DDR und sein Platz in der Erinnerungskultur des vereinten Deutschlands," Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 40 (2000): 5-12;
9. T. Lindenberger, ed., Herrschaft und Eigen-Sinn in der Diktatur: Studien zur Gesellschaftsgeschichte der DDR (Köln and Weimar, 1999), esp. his essay "Die Diktatur der Grenzen: Zur Einleitung," 13-44;
10. Thomas Lindenberger, "Everyday History: New Approaches to the History of the Post-War Germanics," in The Divided Past: Rewriting Post-War German History, ed. Christoph Kleßmann (Oxford and New York, 2001), 52;
11. on the influence of the term Eigen-Sinn on the historiography of East Germany, see Jan Palmowski, "Between Conformity and Eigen-Sinn: New Approaches to GDR History," German History 20, no. 4 (2002): 494-502 .
12. Kurt Starke, "Die Republik der Nackten," Wochenpost, July 22, 1993.
13. See Rainer Gries and Silke Satjukow, "Von Menschen und Übermenschen: Das 'Alltag' und das 'Außeralltägliche' der 'sozialistischen Helden,' " Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 17 (2002): 39-46.
14. Lichtkämpfer, Sonnenfreunde und wilde Nackte: Zur Geschichte der Freikörperkultur in Deutschland (Berlin, 2000);
15. Chad Ross, Naked Germany: Health, Race, and the Nation (Oxford and New York, 2005);
16. Judith Baumgartner, "Freikörperkultur," in Handbuch der deutschen Reformbewegung, 1880-1933, ed. Diethardt Kerbs and Jürgen Renlecke (Wuppertal, 1998), 103-14;
17. Arno Klönne, "Das 'Ja zum Leibe' - mehrdeutig: Zur politischen Geschichte der Freikörperkulturbewegung," Vorgänge 33, no. 3 (1994): 27-32.
18. Michael Andritzky, "Berlin - Urheimat der Nackten: Die FKK-Bewegung in den 20er Jahre," in "Wir sind nackt und nennen uns Du": Von Lichtfreunden und Sonnenkämpfer: Eine Geschichte der Freikö rperkultur, ed. M. Andritzky and Thomas Rautenberg (Giessen, 1989), 50-105;
19. Baumgartner, "Freikörperkultur"; Ulf Erdmann Ziegler, Nackt unter Nackten: Utopien der Nacktkultur, 1906-1942 (Berlin, 1990);
20. Klaus Toepfer, Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1910-1935 (Berkeley, 1997).
21. Matthew Jefferies, "For a Genuine and Noble Nakedness? German Naturism in the Third Reich," German History 24, no. 1 (2006): 62-84;
22. Ulrich Linse, "Sonnenmenschen unter der Swastika: Die FKK-Bewegung im Dritten Reich," in Freikörperkultur und Lebenswelt: Studien zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte der Freikörperkultur in Deutschland, ed. Michael Grisko (Kassel, 1999), 239-96;
23. Dietger Pforte, "Zur Freikörperkultur - Bewegung im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland," in Andritzky and Rautenberg, eds., "Wir sind nackt und nennen uns Du," 136-45;
24. Arnd Krüger, Fabian Krüger, and Sybille Treptau, "Nudism in Nazi Germany: Indecent Behavior or Physical Culture for the Well-Being of the Nation?" International Journal of the History of Sport 19, no. 4 (2002): 33-54;
25. Michael Hau, The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany: A Social History, 1890-1930 (Chicago and London, 2003), chap. 8.
26. See Kathleen Canning, "The Body as Method? Reflections on the Place of the Body in Gender History," Gender and History 11, no. 3 (1999): 499-513.
27. Dorinda Outram, The Body and the French Revolution: Sex, Class and Political Culture (New Haven, CT, and London, 1989), 23.
28. Ruth Barcan, Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy (Oxford and New York, 2004), 94.
29. "Free body culture," often abbreviated to FKK, was the accepted term for nude bathing in the GDR. Given that "body culture" was also used synonymously with sport, this was a rather confusing term, and those hostile to nudism sometimes referred to it as "naked culture" or simply "naked swimming." For the sake of readability, I have translated "free body culture" as "nudism" throughout this piece. In practice, "FKK" covered a multiplicity of behavior, from occasional, opportunistic nude bathers to those who set up nudist groups where all activities, from cooking to sports, were carried out naked. The ideological weight given to nudity also varied considerably, from those who claimed that nudists were morally superior people to those who wanted to save on the price of a swimsuit. In my own usage, I distinguish between "nudists" and "nude bathers." "Nude bathers" refers to those who simply swam in the nude. "Nudism" covers all those who justified their nudity on philosophical, moral, or health grounds and those who wished to be naked for purposes other than swimming and sunbathing.
30. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 24, 31. Horst S. to RdB Rostock, 5.4.61.
31. I am indebted to Mark Fenemore for his insights on this point.
32. Although both nudists and the East German authorities rarely, if ever, referred to developments outside the GDR, it is interesting to note that West German nudism faced similar problems. The movement was shorn of its original ideology, forcing pioneers like Adolf Koch onto the sidelines, and was the target of a sustained campaign by the Adenauer government. As Dagmar Herzog suggests, the political climate in 1950s West Germany had strong antisexual currents, a result of many people's desire to distance themselves from the perceived licentiousness of the Nazi era. In this respect, the East and West German governments may have been more similar than they would have cared to admit. Giselher Spitzer, "Der deutsche Naturismus nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg," in Andritzky and Rautenberg, eds., "Wir sind nackt und nennen uns Du, " 146-62;
33. Dagmar Herzog, "Desperately Seeking Normality: Sex and Marriage in the Wake of the War," in Life after Death, ed. Richard Bessel and Dirk Schumann (Cambridge, 2003), 161-92.
34. Herzog's compelling Sex after Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany (Princeton, NJ, 2005) makes the point that Nazism was associated with sexual license in both Germanics, but it was only in the West that sex played a central role in the memory of fascism.
35. B Arch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 9 (Kolb, HVDVP, to DVP Weimar, 19.8.50).
36. See Giselher Spitzer, '"Nackt und frei'; Die proletarische Freikörperkulturbewegung," in Illustrierte Geschichte des Arbeitersports, ed. Hans Joachim Teichler and Gerhard Hauk (Berlin and Bonn, 1987), 174-81,
37. and "Die 'Adolf-Koch-Bewegung': Genese und Praxis einer proletarischen Selbsthilfe-Organisation zwischen den Weltkriegen," in Arbeiterkultur und Arbeitersport, ed. Hans Joachim Teichler (Clausthal-Zellerfeld, 1985), 77-104; Andritzky, "Berlin - Urheimat der Nackten."
38. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 30. Weißig, Deutscher Sportausschuss, to HDVP, 28.8.51.
39. On the Motzener See in the 1920s and 1930s, see Charly Strässer, Nacktkultur im alten Berlin: Die Anfänge der FKK-Bewegung, ed. Karlwilli Damm (Baunatal and Berlin, 1981), 61-62.
40. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 17. Chief Inspector Lust to Secretary of State Warnke, MdI, November 15, 1950.
41. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 25. Malz, MdI to Brandenburg, MdI, 4.12.50. See also BArch DO 1/10.0/174/4, 55-56 (Otto, MdI, to Dr. B., 18.6.53), where the distribution of West German pin-up magazines is linked to the Workers' Uprising of June 17, 1953, and used as justification for the continuing ban on nudist organizations.
42. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 58. General Inspector Seifert, HVDVP, to Minister for the Interior Willi Stoph, n.d. [June 1954].
43. The Cameroon parties are, sadly, poorly documented. See Judith Kruse, "Nische im Sozialismus," in Endlich Urlaub! Begleitbuch zur Ausstellung im Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn. 6. Juni bis 13 Oktober 1996 (Köln, 1996).
44. See also Benno Pludra, Haik und Paul (Berlin, 1956).
45. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 78. Chief of Police Karl Maron to Karl F., December 10, 1954.
46. On homophobia in 1950s East Germany, see Jennifer Evans, "The Moral State: Men, Mining and Masculinity in the Early GDR," German History 23, no. 3 (2005): 355-70;
47. Günter Grau, "Return to the Past: The Policy of the SED and the Laws against Homosexuality in Eastern Germany between 1946 and 1968," Journal of Homosexuality 37 (1999): 1-21,
48. and "Sozialistische Moral und Homosexualität: Die Politik der SED und das Homosexuellenstrafrecht 1945-1989 - ein Rückblick," in Die Linke und das Laster: Schwule Emanzipation und linke Vorurteile, ed. D. Grumbach (Hamburg, 1995), 85-141.
49. See, e.g., the approval process for the Freikörper-Kultur-Bund Gross-Berlin in LAB, C. Rep. 101, Nr. 153, 197. In 1948, the Interior Administration of the Soviet Zone noted that nudism was not banned, so long as it was morally sound and did not cause a public disturbance. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 1. Untitled document, Deutsche Verwaltung des Innern in der sowjetischen Besatzungszone, August 30, 1948.
50. Many of these were based in traditional nude bathing spots to the southeast of Berlin around Königs-Wusterhausen, but there was also nudist activity in Erfurt, Gera, Weimar, Dresden, Köthen (near Halle), and Rudolstadt. See the police records in BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898.
51. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 33. DVP Mecklenburg to HVDVP, October 11, 1951.
52. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 52. DVP Rostock to HVDVP, August 28, 1953.
53. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 17. Chief Inspector Lust, HVDVP, to Secretary of State Warnke, MdI, November 15, 1950.
54. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-20742-0001, Freikörperkultur an der Ostsee, August 12, 1953; Bundesarchiv Bild 183-20742-0005, Freikörperkultur an der Ostsee, August 12, 1953.
55. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/1306. "Zur Diskussion," Juni 1953. Signed by Herr B. "on behalf of nine workers." BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 11. "Betr. Nachtkulturverbände." DVP Sachsen to HVDVP, 20.9.50.
56. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 56. Hausmitteilung, Minister for the Interior Willi Stoph to General Inspector Seifert, HVDVP, June 5, 1954.
57. "Polizeiverordnung zur Regelung des Badewesens," in Reichsgesetzblatt I (Berlin, 1942), 130.
58. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 50. State Secretariat for Internal Affairs to the HVDVP, June 18, 1953.
59. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 56. Hausmitteilung, Minister for the Interior Willi Stoph to General Inspector Seifert, HVDVP, June 5, 1954.
60. BArch DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 58 (General Inspector Seifert, HVDVP, to Minister for the Interior Willi Stoph, n.d. [June 1954]), 62 (Seifert to regional DVP, June 25, 1954).
61. BArch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 62. Seifert to all regional DVP chiefs, June 25, 1954 (draft).
62. BArch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 58. General Inspector Seifert, HVDVP, to Minister for the Interior Willi Stoph, n.d. [June 1954].
63. BArch DO 1/10.0/174/4, 90. MdI to regional authorities, July 31, 1954.
64. LAG, Rep. 202/1, 12/008, 6. "Bericht," DVP Bergen, August 22, 1952.
65. LAG, Rep. 202/1, 12/008, 6. "Bericht," DVP Bergen, August 22, 1952.
66. B Arch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 75. DVP Rostock to HVDVP, November 4, 1954. It is true that nude bathing was primarily a middle-class activity - partly because professionals and members of the intelligentsia were given priority for in-demand holiday places on the coast. There can be no doubt that there was tension between locals and vacationers in resorts such as Ahrenshoop, but this was often based in economic rather than moral differences. See also SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/3320.
67. "Polizeiverordnung zur Regelung des Badewesens," in Reichsgesetzblatt I (Berlin, 1942), 130.
68. BArch DO 1/10.0/174/4, 55. Otto, MdI, to Dr. B, 18.6.53.
69. Ross, Naked Germany, 35-39.
70. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/1306, Prof. Dr.-Ing. H. Kirchberg, an den Vorsitzenden des Förderungsausschusses für die Deutsche Intellingenz, Herrn Prof. Dr. Kastner, 29.10.54. See also LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 28, 45. Rechenschafts-Bericht über den Verlauf der Badesaison 1955 in den Seebädern des Kreises Wolgast.
71. BArch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 75. DVP Rostock to HVDVP, November 4, 1954.
72. BArch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 94. Steingräber, DVP Rostock, to HVDVP, August 24, 1955.
73. According to Klaus Ender, this lookout system survived until well into the 1960s. Interview with Klaus Ender, January 16, 2004.
74. LAG, Rep. 202/1, Nr. 12/008, 188. "Betr. Polizeiverordnung zur Regelung des Badewesens," November 8, 1954.
75. On petitioning in the Soviet Union, see Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Supplicants and Citizens: Public Letter-Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s," Slavic Review 55, no. 1 (1996): 78-105.
76. On the GDR, see Ina Merkel, ed., " Wir sind doch nicht die Meckerecke der Nation ": Briefe an das Fernsehen der DDR (Berlin, 2000);
77. Felix Mühlberg, Bürger, Bitten und Behörden: Geschichte der Eingabe in der DDR (Berlin, 2004).
78. In English, see Leon Quinn, "The Politics of Pollution: Environmentalism, Government, and Mass Opinion in the GDR" (PhD thesis, University of Bristol, 2002), on environmentalist petitioning,
79. and Young-Sun Hong, "Cigarette Butts and the Building of Socialism in East Germany," Central European History 35, no. 3 (2002): 327-44, on health-related petitioning.
80. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.2.3, Nr. 9, 77. Rudolf S. to RdB Rostock, September 17, 1955.
81. BArch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 80. Karl F. to Karl Maron, February 9, 1955.
82. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/1306, Rudolf B. to Kulturbund Feriendienst, June 22, 1954.
83. BArch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 93. Brandt, DVP Potsdam, to HVDVP, August 22, 1955.
84. LAB, C. Rep. 303-26, Nr. 221, 15. VP Mitte to VP Berlin, August 13, 1954.
85. BArch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 37. "Memorandum," Sport-Gemeinschaft "Freiheit," Berlin, November 15, 1951.
86. LAB, C. Rep. 303-26, Nr. 221, 14. VP Mitte to VP Berlin, August 13, 1954.
87. BArch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 73. Rostock DVP to HVDVP, November4, 1954. 63 BArch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 72. Dresden DVP to HVDVP, August 28, 1954.
88. "Anordnung zur Regelung des Freibadewesens. Vom 18 Mai 1956," Gesetzblatt 1, 50, June 6, 1956, 433ff.
89. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/3318, "Entwurf. Begründung zur Verordnung über die Regelung des Badeverkehrs."
90. LAG, Rep. 202/1, 12/008, 28. "Einschätzung der Badesaison 1959."
91. LAG, Rep. 202/1, 12/008, 137. "Auszug aus dem Beschluß des RdB vom 9.2.60."
92. LAG, Rep. 202/1, 12/008, 199. VP Rostock, "Betr. Freibadewesen in den Kreisen Ribnitz und Wolgast," July 16, 1960.
93. LAG, Rep. 202/1, 12/008, 200. VP Rostock, "Betr. Freibadewesen in den Kreisen Ribnitz und Wolgast," July 16, 1960.
94. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 24, 16-17. Ehrhard N. to Walter Ulbricht, August 4, 1960.
95. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 24, 17. Ehrhard N. to Walter Ulbricht, August 4, 1960.
96. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 9, 108. Klaus-Volker Z. to RdB Rostock, June 7, 1957.
97. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 27, 45. Bericht über den Ablauf der Badesaison 1960 und Schlußfolgerungen für das Jahr 1961 und im Siebenjahrplan.
98. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98. The survey was carried out by Sportmedizinischer Dienst Rostock.
99. The researchers reported a questionnaire return rate of 30 percent: not bad, considering that the questionnaires had been distributed outdoors to naked people, but it is nonetheless possible that only those most committed to the cause of nudism took the trouble to complete the survey. Very few of the surviving questionnaires were filled out by single people (10 out of 64), and the researchers reported a similar rate for all 1,085 questionnaires: 83 percent of the respondents were married, and 64 percent were vacationing with their children. Is this an accurate cross-section of vacationers, or were single people just less likely to get around to completing the questionnaire? There is also no indication how the surviving questionnaires were selected. Many of them are densely filled out with treatises and even poems in favor of nudism. Was this typical of the completed questionnaires (indicating the strength of feeling in its favor), or did some anonymous archivist or researcher simply preserve the most verbose? The researchers appear to have been broadly sympathetic to the nudists' cause: perhaps they submitted the most persuasive questionnaires to the authorities? But despite these caveats, the survey permits a rare glimpse into the world of the GDR nudist and provides at least a starting point for an explanation of nudism's popularity in East Germany.
100. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98. Questionnaire responses, 1966.
101. All percentages refer to the total sample of 1, 000.
102. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98. 3. Summary report on the survey.
103. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-15844-0026. In der Produktionsgenossenschaft "Thomas Müntzer" 11.8.52.
104. BArch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 33. Hövelmans, Mecklenburg DVP to HVDVP, October 13, 1951.
105. Neue Berliner Illustrierte 25 (1952): 34-35.
106. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98. Graph: "Wie zur FKK gekommen?"
107. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98. 30. Questionnaire response, 1966.
108. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98. 65. Questionnaire response, 1966.
109. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 13. Questionnaire response, 1966.
110. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 25. Questionnaire response, 1966.
111. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 78, 28. Questionnaire responses, 1966.
112. Hong, "Cigarette Butts and the Building of Socialism."
113. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 51, 49. Questionnaire responses, 1966.
114. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98. Graph, "Herkunftsbezirke der FKK-Urlauber."
115. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98. Graph: "Kritische Bemerkungen der FKK-Urlauber."
116. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 32, 37, 39. Questionnaire responses, 1966.
117. The southernmost districts of Dresden, Erfurt, Gera, Halle, Chemnitz, Leipzig, Suhl, and Cottbus accounted for 46.1 percent of the GDR's landmass but 60.6 percent of its population and 71.9 percent of its industrial workers. Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1990 (Berlin, 1990), 65.
118. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 32. Questionnaire response, 1966.
119. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 67. Questionnaire response, 1966.
120. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 52. Questionnaire response, 1966.
121. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 9, 93-94;
122. Friedrich Hagen, Baden Ohne: FKK zwischen Mövenort und Talsperre Pöhl (Leipzig and Berlin, 1982), 40.
123. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 10. Questionnaire response, 1966.
124. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 23. Questionnaire response, 1966.
125. See Scott Moranda's dissertation "The Dream of a Therapeutic Regime: Nature Tourism in the German Democratic Republic, 1945-1978" (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2005). I am very grateful to Scott Moranda for sharing his work in progress with me.
126. For more on the relationship between nudism, industrialization, and nature, see David Bell and Ruth Holliday, "Naked as Nature Intended," Body & Society 6 (2000): 127-40.
127. See Barcan, Nudity, 172;
128. Martin Weinberg, "Sexual Modesty, Social Meanings, and the Nudist Camp," Social Problems 12, no. 3 (1965): 311-18;
129. Ross, Naked Germany, ch. 7;
130. and Hera Cook, "Nudism: Sex, Gender and Social Change" (unpublished manuscript, 1994).
131. George Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe (New York, 1985), 51.
132. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 30, 23, 14. Questionnaire responses, 1966.
133. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 14, 18, 16. Questionnaire responses, 1966.
134. BArch, DY 27/3320. Schmarje to Kneschke, 13.9.55.
135. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 63. Questionnaire response, 1966.
136. LAG, Rep. 202/1, Nr. 12/008, 200. VP Rostock, "Betr. Freibadewesen in den Kreisen Ribnitz und Wolgast," July 16, 1960.
137. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 30, 40, 49. Questionnaire responses, 1966.
138. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 50, 37. Questionnaire responses, 1966.
139. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 33, 37. Questionnaire responses, 1966.
140. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 38. Questionnaire response, 1966.
141. For a similar phenomenon among American nudists, see Weinberg, "Sexual Modesty."
142. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 42. Questionnaire response, 1966.
143. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 16. Questionnaire response, 1966.
144. In some cases these values were officially codified. A nude bathing spot near Leipzig, authorized by the Zwenkau town council, was equipped with an exhaustive set of rules: naked bathing was compulsory; dogs, smoking, and photography were banned; children were only allowed entry with the permission of their parents; and six "suitable friends of free body hygiene" were authorized to ensure that these rules were abided by (LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 9, 94. "Geländeordnung," 1957). The nude beach at the Parsteiner Lake in Brandenburg had a similar set of rules right into the 1980s, discouraging single male visitors and allowing smoking only in a designated area (Friedrich Hagen, Baden ohne: FKK zwischen Mövenort und Talsperre Pöhl [Leipzig and Berlin, 1982], 40).
145. Chronik des Sportgeländes am Zeesener See (n.p., 1998).
146. LAB, C. rep. 303-26, nr. 221, 16. "Bericht über die Besprechung mit dem Partei-Aktiv der Sektion Touristik," 4.8.1954.
147. The book was Helmut Burkhardt's Aktfotografie (Halle, 1958), and the correspondence pertaining to it is to be found in B Arch, DR 1/3916. For a more detailed discussion of this case, see my forthcoming article on East German nude photography.
148. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 77. Questionnaire response, 1966.
149. Krüger et al., "Nudism in Nazi Germany," 45-46.
150. See Chronik des Sportgeländes am Zeesener See (n.p., 1998) for an account of a nudist group that managed to outlive both the Nazi and Communist regimes by refiguring itself as a sports group.
151. On factory sports in the GDR, see Jochen Hinsching, "Betriebssport in der DDR," in Zwischen Arbeitnehmerinteressen und Unternehmenspolitik: Zur Geschichte des Betriebssports in Deutschland, ed. Gertrud Pfister (Sankt Augustin, 1999), 104-20.
152. BArch, DO 1/11.0/HVDVP Nr. 898, 50. State Secretariat for Internal Affairs to the Chef der DVP, June 18, 1953. See BArch, DO 1/10.0/174/4 for more on Dr. B.'s campaign to set up a national nudist organization. This file alone contains twenty-three letters written to different authorities. In 1955 B. estimated that he had spent 2,000 hours campaigning for the nudist cause since first being introduced to it in 1951 (BArch, DO1/10.0/174/4, 100, B. to MdI, 11.3.55).
153. This demand is made on seven of the sixty-four questionnaires in LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98.
154. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 30. Questionnaire response, 1966.
155. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 24, 30. Questionnaire response, 1966.
156. Kruse, "Nische im Sozialismus," 111.
157. Linke, German Bodies, 72.
158. Ibid.
159. On sexual Ostalgie,
160. see Herzog, Sex after Fascism, 216-19.
161. Merkel, "Die Nackten und die Roten," 80, 82. One Easterner interviewed about the screen representations of East Germany after 1989 pointed out scathingly: "this nudist-beach story, it is really shown a lot.... Perhaps they try to find something exotic in that: 'well, they didn't have anything, the poor things. Had to claim some territory for themselves after all.'" Quoted in Kathrin Hörschelmann, "Audience Interpretations of (Former) East Germany's Representation in the German Media," European Urban and Regional Studies 8, no. 3 (2001): 195.
162. SAPMO-BArch, DY 1306, Karl-Heinz D. an das Bundessekretariat des Kulturbundes, 19.2.1956.
163. Pludra, Haik und Paul.
164. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 72. Questionnaire response, 1966.
165. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 57. Questionnaire response, 1966.
166. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 98, 32. Questionnaire response, 1966.
167. DJI (Deutsches Jugendinstitut)-Studien-Nr. SOI, Partner I - Junge Arbeiter 1973, Codebook, 10; DJI-Studien-Nr. S62, Partner I - Studenten 1972, Codebook, 15.
168. For example, "Warum baden Sie ohne?" Neue Berliner Illustrierte 32 (1965): 30-31.
169. "Nackt bis aufs Tonband," Berliner Zeitung, September 29, 2003, 16.
170. Hagen, Baden Ohne.
171. BArch, DR 1/2762, 26. Verlagsleiter Tourist Verlag, "Betr. FKK-Führer," 12.8.81.
172. BArch, DR 1/2762, 29. "Kurzerhand" an Höpcke, 22.7.81.
173. BArch, DR 1/2762, 47. "Verlagsgutachten," 6.2.82.
174. Kruse, "Nische im Sozialismus," 111.
175. Hagen, FKK Zwischen Ostsee und Vogtland, 5.
176. DJI-Studien-Nr. B11, Partner III - Lehrlinge 1990, Codebook, 47; DJI-Studien-Nr. B15, Partner III - Berufstätige 1990, Codebook, 42; DJI-Studien-Nr. B19, Partner III - Studenten 1990, Codebook, 43.
177. Found at http://www.waldfkk.de/messages/4450.htm, February 24, 2004.
178. On the history of East German consumer policy, see Ina Merkel, Utopie und Bedürfnis: Die Geschichte der Konsumkultur in der DDR (Köln, 1999),
179. and Ina Merkel, ed., Wunderwirtschaft: DDR-Konsumkultur in den 60er Jahren (Cologne, 1996);
180. Jeffrey Kopstein, The Politics of Economic Decline in East Germany, 1945-1989 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997);
181. Elizabeth A. Ten Dyke, "Tulips in December: Space, Time and Consumption Before and After the End of German Socialism," German History 19, no. 2 (2001): 253-76;
182. Paul Betts, "The Twilight of the Idols: East German Memory and Material Culture," Journal of Modern History 72 (September 2000): 731-65.
183. Monika Kaiser, Machtwechsel von Ulbricht zu Honecker: Funktionsmechanismen der SED-Diktatur in Konfliktsituationen 1962 bis 1972 (Berlin, 1997).
184. LAG, Rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 56, 22. Otto G., an RdB Rostock, Abt. Erholungswesen, 8.2.65.
185. LAG, rep. 200, 8.3.2, Nr. 56, 47. Karsten, Abteilungsleiter Erholungs- und Bäderwesen, RdB Rostock, to Günther S., 4.2.65.
186. Gaus, Wo Deutschland liegt, 157.
187. Moranda, "The Dream of a Therapeutic Regime."
188. G. Schliephake, "Einige Tendenzen bei der Einstellung von im Jugendalter stehenden Personen zur Freikörperkultur (gen. FKK)," Ärztliche Jugendkunde 71 (1980): 375.
189. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1983-0815-302. "Mama, Papa und ich baden am liebsten ohne," August 15, 1983.
190. Rudolf Neubert, Das neue Ehebuch: Die Ehe als Aufgabe der Gegenwart und Zukunft (Rudolstadt, 1957), 243-45;
191. Rudolf Neubert, Fragen und Antworten zum "Neuen Ehebuch" und zur "Geschlechterfrage" (Rudolstadt, 1960), 216.
192. Karl Dietz and Peter Hesse, Wörterbuch der Sexuologie und ihrer Grenzgebiete, 4th ed. (Rudolstadt, 1971), 118.
193. See Carsten Wurm, Jens Henkel, and Gabriele Ballon, Der Greifenverlag zu Rudol-stadt, 1919-1993: Verlagsgeschichte und Bibliographie (Wiesbaden, 2001), 35, 47-49. Wurm makes much of the importance of the Weimar era to Greifenverlag's GDR publications. However, despite the publisher's enlighted attitude toward nudity and their efforts to publish on taboo topics such as homosexuality, this position should not be overstated. Some of the authors who wrote for Greifenverlag, most notably Rudolf Neubert, had less than progressive ideas on subjects such as gender roles which occasionally had to be put right by the state censor.
194. Jugendlexikon Jugend zu zweit, ed. Lykke Aresin and Annelies Müller-Hegemann (Leipzig, 1982), 89-90.
195. Kurt Starke and Walter Friedrich, Liebe und Sexualität bis 30 (Berlin, 1984), 109.
196. "Galerie im Palast der Republik: Auftraggeber: Ministerium für Kultur," in Auftrag: Kunst 1949-1990: Bildende Künstler in der DDR zwischen Ästhetik und Politik, ed. Monika Flacke (Berlin, 1995), 245-60.
197. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1987-0704-042. 4.7.87/Berlin: Jubiläum/ Festumzug/Zwei Badenixen beim Sonnenbaden präsentieren Konsumgüter und Freizeitangebote der Hauptstadt als Zentrum von Produktion und Wissenschaft.
198. See Josie McLellan, " 'A Glass of Champagne at the End of the Working Week' : East German Erotica," in Leisure and Luxury in Socialist Eastern Europe, ed. David Crowley and Susan Reid (forthcoming).
199. See Merkel, "Die Nackten und die Roten," 102.
200. Herzog, Sex after Fascism, 194.
201. Ulrich Berkes, Eine schlimme Liebe: Tagebuch (Berlin und Weimar, 1987), 83.
202. See Merkel, "Die Nackten und die Roten," 104.