A Socialist Defector. Victor Grossman
In the 1950s, as life improved, more and more people used vacation weeks to get away from towns and cities and the north’s beautiful beaches attracted more and more. But in those days police in the East as in the West arrested those who tried to brave waves, wind, and sand without decent cover.
A large number of those enjoying the sandy beaches and Baltic waves in those early years were union vacationers. Big plants or industries like the miners or steel workers had their own hotels, but every factory or office had a supply of two-week vacation tickets to divide up among employees, most of them for an incredibly low 30 marks, including bed, all meals, evening dances, programs of music or talks about local history, and a morning half hour of beach calisthenics for those who wanted it (with loud music, even for those who did not want it). Sometimes there were only enough to grant employees such tickets every three, four, or five years, but many had luck more often, perhaps as a reward for good work or, it was whispered, thanks again to “Vitamin B” (Beziehungen, that is, pull). And then some employees did not apply for the tickets, preferring their own summer bungalows, camping, or visits with their families. Union hotels in the mountains or at a lake could be enjoyable, but the shores of the Baltic were always in greatest demand.
At the seaside hotels, most people used Germany’s distinctive wicker “beach baskets,” with seats for two, easy to turn so as to catch more or less sun or wind, with footrests, armrests for sandwiches or a book and, if your partner held up a bathrobe, a way to change modestly in and out of bathing suits (no bikinis as yet). But people were gradually getting less modest.
As times got better, and more and more, like us, had cars and tents, many did not wait for a union vacation ticket but went north on their own, either to a camping site with a fee for electricity, toilets, and showers or a “wild site” where, if they were thrown out, they could move on to another.
It was usually these wild site campers who decided that nudity was nicer. They defied the laws, first at small out-of-the-way beaches, then more and more belligerently. In the 1960s they won their way; local laws against nudity were relaxed or dropped. By 1968 a total of 50 kilometers (30 miles) were declared FKK beaches. By 1982, 40 beaches had obtained this official title, by 1988 it was 60, not just at the Baltic Sea but at lakes scattered through northern Mecklenburg. One site near the Berlin autobahn proved too distracting, hence dangerous, so a thick row of trees was planted to hide it from drivers.
Otherwise, FKK beaches were not hidden away but were open to everyone, including clothed “visitors,” indistinguishable anyway since everyone was clothed when they arrived. Then they found a good spot, hollowing it out, often sticking a colorful cloth wind-shield in the sand but otherwise quite open. As the custom gained popularity, nudists grew more aggressive, expanding their section, often demarcated only by the scribbled letters FKK on a piece of cardboard, into the neighboring “textile beach”—meaning clothed. This could lead to quarrels with those opposed to nudity, but they usually got used to it, and some beaches were even mixed.
Today’s West German historians, almost daily occupied with denigrating everything about the GDR, insist that this custom was in protest against strict authoritarian rule or at least a chance to get a small taste of freedom for three or four weeks. Since nudity was no longer taboo, the idea of protest carries little weight, but maybe some did see it as freeing, which hardly differs from vacation feelings everywhere. Most people I knew simply disliked wet bathing clothing, liked the sun, saw no reason for shame and enjoyed the friendly spirit prevailing at every FKK beach I knew. Our family was included, at the insistence of my wife, who was, however, far more attractive than I, and did not suffer like me from sunburn! Most people came as families, but even with singles I heard of no harassing, stalking, or anything of the kind. It was just a pleasantly free and easy way to spend a vacation. I would estimate that about a third of all beach-goers were in the buff.
The prevailing good spirits certainly did not rule out almost inevitable jokes on the subject. Did this one (hopefully not objectionable to anti-nudists) also contain a jab at commercialism?: An East German, undressing at an FKK beach with his West German visitor, is amazed at tattooed ads for a car brand on his back and a gasoline brand on his chest. “I get paid a goodly sum for ads,” the man explains. Then, looking rather lower, the East German says, “Oh, I’m so sad to see that you have AIDS. But must you advertise that, too, and there of all places? Who will ever pay you for that?”—“See that mixed game of volleyball over there, with those good-looking players? Just wait till we get closer to them and then take a look!”—“Aha! Not AIDS, but ADIDAS!”
Such jokes might be heard anywhere in Germany, but there were definite differences about sex in East and West. In the GDR there were no porno magazines and only one magazine with a monthly artistic nude photo; later on, there were art books of nude photography. Nor did I ever see a single brothel or peep show; I was never once approached by a prostitute. There were indeed amateurs who tried to befriend foreign businessmen at trade fairs and the like. Western money was highly sought after because of luxuries it could buy in special stores labeled “Intershop,” which sold Western goods for Western money (an unfortunate business—now still troubling Cuba). Was I too naive? I got around but never saw one single professional “sex worker” in all those GDR years. At the FKK beaches, expanding all along the coast and the lakeshores, I found an unself-conscious, unworried, friendly atmosphere, and not the slightest bit of commercialized sex.
In West Germany and West Berlin, brothels were legally permitted, often with neon lights inviting men to fancy “Eros Centers.” In some well-known streets and neighborhoods—Hamburg’s Reeperbahn was most famous—one neon marquee after another advertised sex shows inside, and insistent streetwalkers outside could become truly obnoxious. But non-commercial nudity with mixed sexes, outside the home, was almost completely restricted to saunas, and otherwise taboo.
Were there also differences in personal life? It seems so. A study made not long after German unification found that 19 percent of the mature population in West Germany was sexually active four to six times a week, but in East Germany twice as many, with 38 percent. In West Germany, 4 percent were sexually active at least once a day, in East Germany 13 percent. It was in the East that 83 percent of men and 86 percent of women said that the initiative to have sex “came from both.” Seventy-eight percent of the Eastern women said that their partners had fulfilled their sexual wishes, often involving the frequency of orgasms.
In the GDR premarital sex was not frowned upon but accepted as normal. Contraceptives were free and available to sixteen-year-olds (or older), and the average age of marriage and having babies was much lower (though not at sixteen), despite the fact that over 90 percent of GDR women—but only about half of West German women—had a regular job.
Until 1958, West German law enabled a husband to nullify any job contract his wife signed, and until 1977 a wife needed her husband’s permission to take a job, while he controlled any wages or salary she earned. Until 1962, a wife could not even have her own bank account. Married women did not have full status in any business dealings until 1969. And, as a side note, female teachers in Bavaria were for decades not allowed to keep their jobs if they were married.
All this contrasted strongly with the GDR, whose constitution demanded from the start absolute equal status for women in marriage and at work, with full and equal pay, as well as guarantees to enable those with families to continue employment. Advantages like paid leave when having a baby were there from the start, gradually increasing, as I describe in a later section. Availability of free nursery and kindergarten care also increased year by year until it was practically universal and, while German tradition has school classes ending at midday, GDR schools, after a warm lunch, offered afternoon activities, games, play, and time for homework, making it possible for both parents to work a full day.
It was impossible to abolish all injustices, bad habits, and minor forms of discrimination since, after all, people remained people, hence burdened with human frailties and habits. Miners or steelworkers, mostly male, still got better pay than office workers or retail sales clerks, mostly female. But within each trade pay was equal, and union contracts in every enterprise required a women’s committee to check out complaints and work out plans for training and promoting female employees. This never applied at the very top of the Politburo (with only two women as “candidate members”),