Germany's nudist culture remains refreshing
July 24, 2019
At first glance it seems like a regular beach scene: Children running in and out the water, sandwiches being passed around families and couples sunning themselves.
But on closer inspection most people at Krumme Lanke, a lake in the south west of Berlin have something in common.
They aren't wearing a scrap of clothing. And it's a non-event. No one cares and no one is surprised. There's nothing sexy about it. It's 25C; it's a very hot spring day and there's really no need for clothing if you don't feel like wearing it.
Three letters allowing everyone to get naked: FKK
Germany has a tolerance of and, in some cases, a fondness for being "textile free." Whether it's one of the country's hundreds of spas and wellness resorts, parks or lakes, many citizens here are known for having no qualms about taking their clothes off.
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This is the country of FKK — Freikörperkultur — an informal movement that translates to free body culture.
But with bans on public nudity and the popularity of naked swimming in decline in Germany, advocates of nudist culture fear FKK is on its way out.
A declining tradition?
East Berlin-born Gregor Gysi, president of the European Left, spoke out last year on the decline of FKK and called for more designated areas for nudists.
The politician said that according to a sex researcher it was the "pornographic gaze" of Westerners after reunification in Germany that destroyed the pleasure of nude bathing that had always been more widespread in East Germany.
"It think it's a pity because FKK has class," says Gysi, 70.
An expat's perspective
Back at the lake a cyclist has just arrived, peeled off his bodysuit to reveal bare skin and jumped into the water. I'm not surprised at all the bums on show but it's taken some time to become accustomed to this laid-back attitude to nudity.
Why? Because I'm from Scotland, and, like other parts of the UK, there isn't the same attitude towards stripping off. To put it bluntly, if you take your clothes off in public you'd probably be accused of being a pervert. It's just not that common.
For Scotland the reluctance to go nude could be blamed on year-round terrible weather, but it's also something deeper. The British attitude to bare skin differs hugely from the continent. We're not used to seeing naked bodies unless they are highly sexualized in advertisements, music videos or porn.
So "normal" nudity in saunas or beaches can make expats giggle or feel embarrassed.
"In Anglo culture, people tend to have a very different relationship to the body, says Annegret Staiger, associate professor of anthropology at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York. "Where as if you go to Germany, Bulgaria, France, Austria… it's a different story.
"In the US people are scandalized about skin and at the same time make such a hype about showing it," adds Staiger, who grew up in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, before leaving to study in the US in 1987.
A counterweight to sexualized nudity
For me, the thought of baring all in public was unimaginable until I visited Berlin to take part in a journalism fellowship in 2015. Along with learning the language I was trying to embrace German culture — and quickly found out that FKK and not wearing any clothes in spa environments was part of that.
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It took a lot of courage but I did it. After years of feeling uncomfortable in my skin, feeling that my body was ugly or something to be hidden away, it felt empowering to lie on the wooden slats of the sauna, with the heat prickling across my skin.
I found the attitude to nudity in Germany refreshing.
I had battled body confidence issues for years and embarked on numerous diets as I struggled with my changing body shape after puberty. But here people of all shapes and sizes could take their clothes off and feel comfortable.
It was such a different concept compared to what I'd grown up with. Taking your clothes off isn't necessarily a sexual thing and it's not about looking good.
Politician Gysi agrees, saying nudism "isn't really erotic." "I see FKK as a possible counterweight to the ubiquitous sexualization in advertising, but also in society in general," he adds.
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A brief history of a movement
The country's first FKK organization was created in 1898 and the idea, connected to the pursuit of good health, quickly spread, especially around Berlin, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
"Even at the turn of the century there was this movement away from the cities," says Staiger. "It was part of a broader movement connected to not having the body constrained by things like corsets, and letting it breathe."
Rather than sexualizing the body, the naturist movement was about health as well as freeing people from shame, social inequality and from the unhealthy living environments in the crowded cities of early industrialization.
At the time there were dozens of magazines and films dedicated to FKK culture.
FKK was initially banned by the Nazis during the war era, but the practice soon returned. Staiger says it could be argued that the party adopted the culture in some ways through their obsession with bodies.
"By the time Hans Suren's book Mensch und Sonne (1936) and Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film Olympia (1938) came about, nudism had become incorporated — at least to some extent — into the racial ideology of the Nazis," she says.
FKK culture persisted after the war and, although it existed in both East and West Germany, it took on a new meaning in the East where it became a symbol for people to escape a repressive state.
"FKK culture has a long tradition in Germany," says Gysi. "Partly, it also had ties to the workers' movement. In the GDR (German Democratic Republic), FKK beaches on the Baltic Sea were the norm."
Gysi says there were no separate nude beaches — everyone, whether they chose to wear clothing or not — bathed together. "This way of dealing with nudity was lost after the country's reunification," he adds.
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Not the spirit of FKK: Sex sauna clubs
Staiger says a darker side connected to FKK has emerged in recent years in the form of sauna clubs that sell sex.
"We have the issue of these sauna clubs or brothels that call themselves FKK sauna clubs, but they're hiding behind the FKK label. It's another cycle of co-optation of an idea or maybe an ideology."
These clubs, according to Staiger, "don't have the spirit of FKK," she says. "They're purely a euphemism to make it (prostitution) more acceptable."
"FKK and nudist culture was about celebrating the body unencumbered by clothes, in nature and sunlight," adds Staiger. "In FKK sauna clubs, only sex workers are naked, except for their six-inch high heels. That is not what the idea of FKK is about."
A culture worth protecting
So how can naturist culture get back to its roots and does it have a place in modern German life?
The way forward, Gysi says, lies with local politics — and to ignore those against it. "They (politicians) can easily declare certain areas on beaches and in spas to be FKK areas and in doing so they should not be misled by investors (who don't want nude people there)," he says.
Gysi says nudism stands for "self-confidence and the departure from social constraints" and I have to agree. "That's important and worth supporting," he adds.
As a non-German I feel there's something special about naturist culture.
And I like living in a country where you're likely to find pensioners in the buff, friends chilling without clothes, and naked yoga. No one cares what you look like, it's just bodies — we all have them.
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