Germany, indeed, is powerfully connected with the culture of the naked body. Between 8 and 12 million Germans (9-14% of the population) are naked. There are 300 registered nudist clubs in the country. In the Tiergarten, a huge park in the center of Berlin, topless sunbathing is allowed, but there is also a clearing for the totally naked. 

Why has Germany become synonymous with nudism?

Nudism was invented to treat all diseases in the sun. Then ideology and Aryan ideas were added to it
The history of the naked body is thousands of years old. Scientists have known whether it was the norm to go without clothes in ancient Greece, but they agree that at the ancient Olympic Games, athletes competed naked. Even "gymnastics" comes from "gymnos" – naked, undressed.

In modern times, the French remembered nudism as a means of improving hygiene. British colonists organized a "naked brotherhood" on beaches in India, escaping the local heat. But as a reasoned idea, and then a mass movement, nudism appeared in Germany.

In the middle of the XIX century, the Swiss naturopath Arnold Rikli opened a sanatorium, where he prescribed sunbathing without clothes for patients. In his opinion, the rays healed tuberculosis, rheumatism, scrofula, rickets and a host of other diseases.

The idea appealed to the Germans, who, due to industrialization, moved to cities and huddled in tiny and dark unventilated apartments. By 1906, 105 solar sanatoriums had been opened in Germany. Fans of sun healing have united in a circle of "natural healing".

Healers were part of large-scale movements for social reform (Lebensreform). The movements criticized urbanization, advocated the rejection of bad habits, promoted homeopathy, a return to the natural state, the land and, of course, nudism.

So new meanings were hung on a simple thought.

The publisher and author of the term Nacktkultur – "naked culture" or "naturism", but for simplicity's sake we will continue to call the phenomenon nudism – Heinrich Pudor wrote that nudism will return civilization to its native environment and save it from degeneration: "In our time, a naked person is considered tasteless and looks like a slap in the face – that's how unnatural we have become." He proposed to combine nudity with vegetarianism.

His follower Richard Ungevitter believed that nudism, vegetarianism and abstinence from alcohol and tobacco would make Germans a nation with blue eyes and blond hair: "If every German woman saw a naked German man more often, there would not be so many exotic races running after them. For reasons of healthy selection, I call for a naked culture, so that strong and healthy people mate and weak people do not reproduce."

The teacher Adolf Koch improved his own method of gymnastics through nudism. He introduced it at a school in the center of Berlin, but was fired for allegedly climbing under the student's skirt. In the new school – for troubled teenagers – the method has flown away. Koch agreed with the parents and once a week gathered 10-12-year-old children for naked gymnastics.

After another accusation, Koch resigned and founded a private gymnastics school. Soon it had 13 branches across the country, in which 60 thousand people were engaged. Koch became the editor of the journal Körperbildung / Nacktkultur (Physical Education / Culture of Nudity), and the first nudist congress was held in his Berlin office in 1929.

Over time, the socialist Koch added a pinch of ideology: he explained that nudity liberates from the obsession with authority, which makes proletarians bow to their masters, as well as parents, the paternalism of the church and law enforcement.

The nudists were influential Nazis, and after the partition of Germany, the movement flourished in the GDR, where it was considered an escape from communism
The first nudist club in 1898 in Essen. A couple of years later, they swam naked in the North and Baltic Seas.

The cradle of Berlin nudism is Lake Motzen, 20 kilometers from the city. Vacationers got there by train, asking the drivers to slow down at the reservoir - there was no official stop there. The demand became so popular that in 1931 the authorities built a station.

In 1920, a sign with the abbreviation FKK appeared on the beach of the island of Sylt in the North Sea. Since then, nudism in Germany has been called Freikörperkultur ("free/nude body culture"), and nudist clubs are called FKK associations.

The clubs quickly merged into the all-German union FKK. In six years, 70 thousand members joined it. They came up with the monthly magazine Leben und Sonne (Life and Sun) and, together with associations from other countries, organized the European Nudism League.

In 1933, the National Socialists came to power in Germany. They banned nudism on the grounds that it was growing immorality and that public nudity was a breeding ground for Marxists and homosexuals.

The ban was relaxed within a month. They stopped at the fact that Jews and communists cannot be members of associations, and activities should be carried out outside the city. The reason for the relaxation is that many influential Nazis were nudists. With their support, the nudist Olympic Games were held in Thiel, Switzerland, and SS leader Himmler is called one of the fans of nudism.

The Reich decree on concealed bathing was in effect in the FRG until the 1960s, in the GDR until 1990. This did not prevent East Germans from practicing nudism on lakes, seas and campsites outside of water bodies. Resorts for the elite arose - writers, actors and officials gathered on the Ahrenshop beach on the Baltic Sea.

"Oddly enough, the nudist movement was flourishing in the GDR. It didn't even seem to be a movement. It was a matter of course that everyone bathes naked," Berlin-based journalist Dmitri Vacedin told Sports.

Nudism in the GDR was indeed more popular than in the FRG, and nude scenes appeared in GDR films earlier than in Hollywood. There is a theory that nudism in the East was perceived as an escape from communist society and conformism.

"I have heard about this version," Vachedin continues. – In the GDR, residents were clamped down ideologically, but not clamped down on matters of sex. Erotic films were shot there, there was no harsh morality. The German leftists walked around naked calmly."

According to him, the scale of nudism in the GDR is probably related not only to politics, but also to religion: "The east is a less religious part of the country than the believing south. In the GDR, there are about 60% of atheists. There is a freer morality."

In the 2010s, a black-and-white photo of three naked women appeared on the Internet. One resembled a young Angela Merkel. The media contacted the chancellor's office, but they declined to comment. As a result, journalists conducted their own investigations.

Some that are in the photo are really Merkel: the girl has similar body proportions, her head is also tilted. Others: the photo was first published in the Swedish nudist magazine Helios in the 1960s - it is unlikely that Merkel, who turned 16 only in 1970, would have made it to its pages.

Who is in the picture is still unknown. But given the popularity of nudism in the GDR, a resident of a small town near Berlin could well be a follower of the FKK, even if she is not depicted in a particular photo.

"By the way, this photo did not cause a sensation in Germany. Even if it's her, what's wrong? In the GDR, everyone bathed naked. And even being photographed naked did not seem like something special," recalls journalist Vachedin.

What does nudism look like in Germany now? Naked saunas, nightclubs and even beaches in Berlin
In 2014, the travel website Expedia.co.uk conducted a survey. It revealed that 28% of Germans and Austrians had been naked at least once on the beach. Next came the Norwegians (18%), Spaniards and Australians (17% each).

Today, 600 thousand Germans are members of nudist clubs and not only sunbathe naked, but also conduct naked races and naked hiking. There are zones for FKK in many parks in Berlin, Munich and other cities. You can undress on public beaches.

The second aspect is nightclubs: Berghain, KitKat. It's hot there and they walk half-naked.

"It's hard to imagine walking into a naked sauna and not looking at others.

"I came in for the first time - unusual. After 15 minutes, I got used to it and understood. Like a KitKat club where people have sex. After 15 minutes, you think: "Well, they are studying and studying." What is perceived by others as the norm becomes the norm for you, if it does not contradict the deep foundations.

– Is it true that you can sunbathe topless in parks?

– A few years ago, there was a funny incident. The girl was sunbathing topless, and the park guards asked her to leave the territory, because the rules say that women are not allowed to do this. It was such a non-Berlin case that she sued and won it. Then in parks and outdoor pools there was a rule that women can be topless.

The trial was because of injustice: why can men walk with their chests open, and women cannot? From a legal point of view, it is difficult to separate a woman's breast from a man's and say that this is a different matter. There were rallies in support of the girl - hundreds of people on bicycles rode topless through the center of Berlin.