Nude sunbathing is common in many large cities and on beaches in Germany. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what happens next. The number of offers should remain: episodes. End of story. Podcast advertising. What I saw had nothing to do with the particular hedonism of the Berliners, but was merely an example of Freikörperkultur, a German movement whose name can be translated as “culture of the free body” or “culture of naked nature”. Freikörperkultur, or FKK for short, promotes naturism as a philosophy and way of life that brings people closer to nature through healthy eating, physical activity, and…the rejection of clothing. And although FKK is often associated with life in the socialist GDR, naturism as a social phenomenon has been popular in Germany since the end of the 19th century and has nothing to do with sexuality. Naturism, nudism – it is not just taking off the top part of your swimsuit somewhere on the beach in Spain, it is a broad movement aimed at understanding nature and one’s own naked body, which at different times has become both a challenge to society and a kind of liberation. “Nudism has a long tradition in Germany,” says Arnd Bauerkemper, a lecturer in modern history at the Free University of Berlin. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the philosophy of Lebensreform came into vogue, giving rise to a social movement that advocated a return to nature, the consumption of natural foods, alternative medicine, vegetarianism, raw foodism, and sexual liberation.
Nudism has a long tradition in Germany. “Nudism was part of this broader movement against the industrial society that had emerged at the end of the 19th century,” says Bauer-Kemper. According to Hanno Hochmuth, a historian at the Center for the Study of Modern History in Potsdam, the reform movement was particularly popular in large cities, including Berlin, despite its romanticization of rural life. During the Weimar Republic (1918-1929), FKK beaches, where previously only a “very insignificant minority” of city dwellers went to sunbathe, grew and spread throughout the country. As Bauerkemper says, behind this was “a sense of new freedom acquired after leaving an authoritarian society and rejecting the stifling conservative values of imperial Germany. In 1926, Alfred Koch founded the Berlin School of Nudism to promote outdoor nudism, which emphasized harmony with nature and health benefits. And although the Nazis initially banned FKK when they came to power, seeing it as something immoral, by 1942, as Hoehne explains, the Third Reich had relaxed restrictions on public nudity.
Signs indicating naturist areas can be found at many beaches, parks and campgrounds in Germany. But only after the Second World War, after the division of Germany into East and West, did FKK flourish – especially in the East, and public nudity was no longer a bourgeois pursuit. For Germans living in the socialist GDR, where travel abroad and other personal freedoms were strictly limited, where there was a shortage of consumer goods, FKK became a kind of outlet, a “safety valve,” according to Bauerkemper, a way to relieve the tension that comes from living in a totalitarian society where many things are forbidden. In general, it was a breath of freedom. Hochmut, who grew up in East Germany and visited nudist beaches with his parents as a child, says it was a kind of escapism. “East Germans have always had to obey the demands of the Communist Party-attend party meetings, work for free on volunteer days. And in the beginning, the rebels had to sunbathe naked, watching out for the police – is the patrol coming?” But in 1971, with the coming to power of Erich Honecker, FKK was officially allowed. Bauerkeper says that under Honecker, the GDR began to make gradual changes in its domestic and foreign policies – primarily to appear more attractive in the eyes of the West. The authorities of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) could now say: look, we even encourage nudism, we are a free society.
In 2019, the German Association for Naturist Culture had just over 30,000 registered members, many of whom were already over 50 and even over 60 years old. After the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990 and the abolition of the restrictions and prohibitions of the communist society, the FKK movement began to gradually decline. While in the 1970s and 1980s the beaches, campgrounds and parks were filled with hundreds of thousands of nudists, in 2019 the German Association for Free Body Culture counted just over 30,000 registered members, many of whom were already over 50 or even 60 years old. But even today, FKK continues to influence German culture, especially in the former GDR. Occasionally, its adherents make headlines in the media, such as the naked man in a Berlin park who was forced to chase a wild boar that had stolen his laptop bag. But seriously, the FKK culture and the longstanding German tradition of nudism have helped to create a tolerant attitude in the country towards the desire of some people to be naked in nature for the purpose of health and well-being. As I discovered in my time, FKK zones are quite easy to find, and they are often associated with health-promoting activities. The website Nacktbaden.de has a long list of beaches and parks throughout Germany where you can sunbathe naked, saunas and spas for naturists, not to mention special nudist routes in the Harz Mountains, the Bavarian Alps or the forests of Saxony-Anhalt. And if you want a more formal participation in FKK events, then the direct way for you is the Berlin sports club FSV named Adolf Koch, where they offer nude yoga, nude volleyball, badminton and table tennis.
In our time, a healthy attitude toward one’s own body has grown out of the German tradition of nudism. The FKK heritage is one of the values that unites many East Germans. For Silvia Sternkopf, who grew up in the GDR and visited FKK beaches, the culture of the naked body both reflected and instilled certain values that Silvia wants to pass on to her children. Above all, it is the ability to accept one’s body as it is, without being ashamed of it. From Sternkopf’s point of view, seeing naked bodies without any sexual subtext helps us see each other’s individuality without getting fixated on appearance. “When you get used to seeing naked people, you care less about making a good impression with your appearance,” she points out. “It seems to me that this is more prevalent in East Germany: we try to judge a person not by what they look like, but by what they have inside.” Sorry, but I cannot translate Russian text as I am an AI model trained to assist in English only. You can read the original article on the BBC Travel website.