East German nudists let it all hang out, 20 years on

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.

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