East German nudists let it all hang out, 20 years on
Anna
"Freikoerperkultur" ("Free body culture") in what was once communist
East Germany is still going strong
PREROW, Germany — "It has nothing to do with sex," insisted Udo
Schumacher, 64, as he stood, stark naked, on a beautiful but bracing
beach in Prerow in what was once communist East Germany.
"If you go in and experience how lovely it is to swim with a naked
body, and come out without wet trunks on, you feel healthy. And if you
can get over the fact that you are naked, it is great," he told AFP
back in August.
"Freikoerperkultur" ("Free body culture"), or "FKK" for short, was
hugely popular in the otherwise highly restrictive German Democratic
Republic (GDR), much more so than in West Germany.
And 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall this November 9, the
habit is still going strong, and has even attracted a loyal band of
followers from what was West Germany to the beaches of the east.
With life so tightly controlled in other ways -- no freedom of speech,
little freedom to travel, the Stasi secret police spying on citizens
-- FKK was a rare liberty that people made full use of in the GDR.
"It was one of the few liberties," said Schumacher, who is from
Dortmund in the west. "I get the feeling that people in the GDR said
to the authorities, 'Don't take this away from us as well'."
Nowhere was this more evident than here in Prerow, a picturesque
seaside town 300 kilometres (190 miles) north of Berlin, with its
long, pristine beaches, sand dunes and crystal-clear, if chilly,
water.
Here in GDR times, 2,500 border guards, 70 watch towers, searchlights,
barbed wire, boats and radar all made sure no one escaped by sea to
West Germany or to Denmark, Doris Pegel, 53, curator of the local
museum, told AFP.
Sailing and even surfing were off limits. But one thing people were
allowed to do in the shadow of Prerow's watchtowers, and on other
beaches and lakes around the communist country, was to indulge in FKK.
And indulge they did, in huge numbers, as people flocked to the
seaside in summer and gave FKK a try. In Prerow, for example, nudists
created one of the GDR's first nudist campsites, where demand for
pitches was massive.
When the GDR was still young, however, the Politburo saw FKK as a
hangover from the Nazis and as dangerous petty bourgeois degeneracy,
Josie McLellan, a modern history lecturer at Britain's University of
Bristol who has researched the phenomenon, told AFP.
Such suspicions were not helped by events in Prerow, where nudists
gathered on the beach and the sand dunes at night, daubing body parts
with toothpaste and wearing African-style headgear for debauched
"Cameroon Parties."
With the ministry of the interior calling nudism a threat to the
"natural and healthy feelings of our working people", the authorities
tried to stamp out FKK in the 1950s.
But many nudists were also party members, policeman and even judges,
who protested that "doing FKK" and being a good communist were not
mutually exclusive, and that nudism was non-sexual.
"Here, the woman is not an object of desire, she is a comrade, there
is no bikini to excite you," McLellan cites one contributor to an
illuminating 1966 survey of nudists as saying.
A widespread campaign of popular resistance soon made the authorities
relent, and by the 1960s and 1970s onwards FKK was almost a national
pastime that was even encouraged by the regime.
It became much more popular than in both Western Europe and in the
rest of the Eastern Bloc, with the possible exception of the beaches
of Croatia in the former Yugoslavia.
This was because although nudism was tolerated, belonging to any kind
of nudist organisation was banned. Such logic made FKK more popular
since people could just give it a try, without having to join a club
first.
As one joke put it: "What do you call a gathering of two or more GDR
citizens? An illegal meeting. Or a nudist beach."
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Doris Pegel was in West Germany,
and remembers phoning home in Prerow and being told that, along with
everywhere else in the GDR, there were joyous scenes.
"I was told, 'They're surfing on the beach in Prerow'," Pegel told
AFP.
But of the many things to flood eastwards after German unification in
1990, one of the less welcome was a certain prudishness towards nudism
on the part of the curious new "Wessi" ("Westerner") tourists.
The result was an effort to regulate the hobby more, and to demarcate
beaches and lakes into FKK and clothed areas.
A look around in Prerow today shows that although the GDR is long
dead, the old spirit of FKK has survived.
"Here it's all very mixed because people don't have a problem with it.
It's supposed to be separated but nobody really minds," 66-year-old
nudist Inge told AFP on Prerow beach.
A naked Werner Tallen, a 60-year-old lawyer, meanwhile insisted with a
smile that he travelled the 825 kilometres (510 miles) from his home
in Munich "because of the Baltic, not because of FKK."
newsgroups
throughout Germany before the post-WW2 split. The former West German people
embrace FKK social nudism but more so in organized clubs, campgrounds,
indoor swimming pools as well as on the free beaches. As the article points
out, the GDR wouldn't tolerate social organizations, so people in general
adopted the FKK a little differently in the East than it was in the West.
When the two side reunited, European tourism flooded the former eastern
beaches, and there were conflicts, not based so much on prudish attitudes
but more so on how one achieves the recreational aspect. The old joke
about west Germans was if two are seen talking together, they are probably
forming a club of some sort. That would be the opposite of life in the
east. The former west German would spend every sunny day at the FKK club
grounds or official FKK textile-free beach area, before just taking it all
off in a city park. Its not prudish behavior its a comfort with doing
everything in an orderly fashion.
Bill S in AZ
"Anna" <annal...@lycos.com> wrote in message
news:6f208d5f-4bc1-480d...@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jcKj1BKS0yXo6QafidSuZpGu0l4g
"Freikoerperkultur" ("Free body culture") in what was once communist
East Germany is still going strong
PREROW, Germany � "It has nothing to do with sex," insisted Udo
Zee
> The article is not quite accurate. Naturism was well accepted and practiced
> throughout Germany before the post-WW2 split. The former West German people
> embrace FKK social nudism but more so in organized clubs, campgrounds,
> indoor swimming pools as well as on the free beaches. As the article points
> out, the GDR wouldn't tolerate social organizations, so people in general
> adopted the FKK a little differently in the East than it was in the West.
> When the two side reunited, European tourism flooded the former eastern
> beaches, and there were conflicts, not based so much on prudish attitudes
> but more so on how one achieves the recreational aspect. The old joke
> about west Germans was if two are seen talking together, they are probably
> forming a club of some sort. That would be the opposite of life in the
> east. The former west German would spend every sunny day at the FKK club
> grounds or official FKK textile-free beach area, before just taking it all
> off in a city park. Its not prudish behavior its a comfort with doing
> everything in an orderly fashion.
>
> news:6f208d5f-4bc1-480d...@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com...http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jcKj1BKS0yXo6Qafid...
>
> http://tinyurl.com/yfxhkkb
>
> "Freikoerperkultur" ("Free body culture") in what was once communist
> East Germany is still going strong
>
Bill S.....it looks as though you are well up on those germans....not
so here but i did notice something that apparently is a world wide
opinion on nudity and i would like to see a poll if a honest poll is
possible....there are so many reasons why folks lie that even a poll
is never quite accurate.....topless is ok and before bottomless bars
it was a turn on.....but with total nudity finally....that is the end
of the road and is the total turn on for my group.....but i do know
that there is even in rec nude a great interest in talkin about
boobs...big boobs...and also this is a favorite among the young
guys...and then i suspect that this same group would say topless with
g string bottoms is the total turn on.....it seems males are scared of
females with no bottoms on.....this is strange to me....but maybe you
understand it a different way......regards....jz