Mel Gordon - Voluptuous Panic - The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin

Unusual:Males and children walk around the compound completely naked but class and celebrity status of females is indicated by tiny accouterments, like chic bathing-hats, pearl earrings, and fine gold necklaces. Many wear distinct, French silk footwear for protection from pebbles.

Affiliation:Militantly apolitical. Founded by Fritz Gerlach. Member of Reichs Union for Free Body Culture and Life Reform, a consortium of organizations opposed to Koch and Fuchs’ tendentious beliefs. (“German Light-Bathing Society” and the “League for Free Life Reform”). Journal Licht-Luft-Leben .

Atmosphere and Philosophy:Sexy and vibrant. “‘Happiness—the imposed order of the day!”

Clientele:Smart set, including members of the British Embassy staff. Young suntanned, sports-group types. Beautiful boys and girls. “Fatties” and photographers banned.

Decor:Agrarian and unpretentious.

Health Regimen:Nude sports—ball-tossing, swimming, bathing. Sun bathing, family picnicking, open campfires, folk singing, and boating.

Separation of Genders:None.

Unusual:Displays of physical affection and romantic attachments allowed.

Affiliation and Clientele:Same as Koch’s Berlin schools.

Atmosphere and Philosophy:Socialist, non-sexual. Family-friendly. Utopian, a bit of paradise for the underprivileged.

Clientele:Mostly workers from North Berlin and its suburbs. Unemployed and homeless youth who can make the trek to the Territory are allowed one free week of food and lodging.

Decor:Cabins and tents are surprisingly cozy but set cheek-by-jowl like an Edenic slum. Trails, stone pathways, swimming areas, and exercise grounds are scrupulously forged from native materials.

Health Regimen:Nudists sign on for one- or two-week sessions. In addition to attending Socialist lectures and gymnastic classes, they are expected to do practical work, like baking bread, building cabins, digging sanitation ditches, and erecting fences. No smoking or alcoholic drinks. Cheap vegetarian meals are offered: fresh milk, butter, vegetables, whole-grain breads, and a sticky root-vegetarian goulash.

Separation of Genders:None.

Unusual:All campers must fill out a detailed “Free Men” questionnaire about their personal lives and political orientation. Teenage boys, in addition, are required to write about their most vivid sexual fantasies. A female counselor then meets with them in order to assess the likelihood of any embarrassing, spontaneous arousal. Boys who experience erections or other signs of “unnatural” excitement are sent to a special clinic for therapy.

Area:A beautiful and isolated area of the TIERGARTEN. One block south of the Spree.

Atmosphere:Dignified and seemingly scientific. A quaint throw-back to the Wilhelmian era. Yet beneath its finely polished veneer, the Institute is a citadel of revolutionary and astonishing beliefs. Directly over its massive portal is an inscription in Latin, “Sacred to Love and Sorrow.”

Clientele:Curious Berliners, foreign tourists, including many artistic celebrities, and groups of international social reformers, anthropologists, physicians, and psychiatrists.

Decor:Three adjacent buildings on the former Radziwill and Hartfeld estates—some 65 rooms in all. In the Prince’s central mansion, the basement is divided into domestic, kitchen, and office spaces. Main floor consists of a reception area (with one room filled with mementos of Queen Louise and Napoleon) and small consulting and waiting rooms. Second floor is cleaved into Magnus Hirschfeld’s living quarters and the Museum of Sexology. The top floor houses various laboratories and an X-Ray studio.

The second building houses several outpatient clinics and a large lecture hall. Here counseling for venereal disease, birth control, marriage difficulties, frigidity, impotence, and gender exploration is conducted. The Institute’s records and scientific library (which includes Europe’s largest collection of graphic and literary pornography) is held in a smaller courtyard unit.

Entertainment:The Museum is open to the public and contains thousands of erotic artifacts and pictorial materials, categorized according to Hirschfeld’s unique sexual taxonomy. The masturbation machines and mechanical sexual aids from everywhere, including Oceania and Southeast Africa, are a public favorite. Also of special interest are the 1,200 fantasy drawings by convicted Lustmord prisoners and 8,000 selected photographs and cherished items from the collections of Berlin foot and hand fetishists.

Unusual:Sex manuals and magazines, scientific literature, traditional aphrodisiacs from Asia and Africa, and erotic stimulants, which were developed in the Institute, are sold at the Museum counter. Many of the Institute’s employees fall into Hirschfeld’s “transitional” spectrum of “not male/not female” categories. “Female” and “male” hermaphrodites, transvestites, transsexuals, and other Intergrades cook the meals and assist with the Museum activities and demonstrations.

Area:BERLIN WEST. “Face-to-face” with the SCALA Variety theatre.

Atmosphere:Wild ballroom excitement on weekends. Ostentatious but thoroughly titillating. Flyers in tourist cafés advertise: “International Trade, Interesting Nights.” The air itself is dense with clashing fragrances: French perfumes and the unmistakable scent of the powdered female body.

Clientele:Berlin high society, adventurous foreign tourists, provincial artists and writers, Dodos , and beautiful Ladies in evening finery. Uncommonly attractive Demi-Castors and Fohses —competing with a like number of cross-dressed knockouts.

Decor:Huge banner over entrance proclaims: “HERE IT IS RIGHT!” Nearby are two oversized frescoes that show Ulysses being beckoned by gorgeous Circes (of course, in drag) and the trial of Paris, who hesitates between a trio of male Graces.

An eccentric series of pseudo-homilies are posted in the foyer and at the hat-check room. One reads: “Don’t Worry about the Cold of Winter/ Here You Can Warm Your Hands!’

Lou, a Valentino-lookalike maître d’, leads the customers to the main dining room, where there are several dozen packed tables pushed to the left and right sides of the dance floor. More frescoes of nude hieroglyphic figures are painted on the walls. Garlands hang everywhere and stringed balloons float from the tops of champagne bottles. A large cabaret stage adjoins the far wall.