THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DAMM COLLECTION FOR THE STUDY OF NATURISM

 

For decades Karlwilli Damm (1908-83) has collected the “International Naturist Library/Karlwilli Damm,” archives Kassel. As it is not a pure library, we can simply speak of the “collection Damm”.

For the collector it meant an enormous financial burden to pay the subscriptions of the magazines as well as the invoices of the bookkeepers year in, year out, as you can find nearly 100 magazines in German language and about 80 international naturist magazines and 150 nude magazines in foreign languages which partly have been subscribed for decades. Karlwilli Damm collected everything which has somehow to do with the problems and the history of the naturist movement, as e.g. also the anti-naturist literature of the church, novels and reports from naturists as well as juridical, theological, educational and sexology texts and especially all the club publications of the different naturist and nudist clubs.

Which means that this collection shows nearly everything about the naturist movement and its surroundings from the bibliophilic rarity to the hectographed club message; from the rare and old nude photos up until the spontaneous nude photos taken by amateurs, from the badge of honour to the club pennant. It is very likely that the collection of magazines from the twenties and the fifties of our century will not find others which are as complete as this collection is; and this completeness gives us a chance to investigate the way of the naturist associations from naturism to nudism, i.e. from a life reforming organization to an organization of tourism.

From the very first moment on the naturist movement has been conflicting. Nudity should make people free from the ancient pictures and behaviour, however many of the naturist propagandists in the clubs represented the pre-fascist ideology. On the other hand there has also been a left-orientated naturism within the labour movement; one of their most popular representatives was the teacher Adolf Koch (1897-1970). It was not before the end of the 2nd World War that the “movement” could be described as nudism, although still some socio-hygienic and healthy aspects were propagated, but the nudity in the clubs became more and more popular and took the shape of a tourist leisure time.

Only an intensive research will make it possible to describe the history of the naturist movement in connection with its conflicting closeness with National Socialism, and here the collection Damm gives an excellent chance to do this as the collection does not only archive the material which corresponds to the main stream. In order to do justice to the naturist movement, the scientist must also do his work of research with the minority of members of naturism who organized themselves in the socialist labour movement.

In Kassel you will find excellent material for the necessary biographical research of such controversial persons as e.g. Hans Surén (1885-1972), Charly Strasser (1900-89) or Adolf Koch (1897-1970). Karlwilli Damm had been a personal friend of Adolf Koch and certainly did not belong to the people whom the Nazis could easily integrate.

Damm had combined certain topics in groups, as you can easily realize when reading his list of contents, and these different groups of themes make people analyse.

The photo history –this relatively young branch of the art history– here gets very precious idea for its sector “nude photography”, as we could also get them in the exhibition Das Aktfoto – Ansichten von Körper im fotografischen Zeitalter (The nude photo –view of the body in the photographic age) in the City Museum of Munich. The sector “nude photography” is not yet fully incorporated –e.g. detailed work has still to be done on the photography of amateurs in the naturist clubs and their resorts.

Karlwilli Damm has not only archived the literature and the magazines from the Nazi era, but also collected letters and other documents.

With the help of these documents it is possible to correct photo historical misjudgments which were taken in those days from the photo material of the fascists. In the book Das Aktphoto (the nude photo) –which I mentioned before– the co-editor Michael Koehler writes that the fact that most of the photos have been taken in the summertime can lead us to the assumption of limited naturist activities at the time of the Nazis. “As a kind of symbol here the circumstance is being reflected that after 1933 public nudity in the sense of the naturist movement– if there has been any at all– was only tolerated in connection with nude swimming in the summer holidays.” (Das Aktphoto, Munich 1985, page 303).

However, within very soon you get a different impression from the one being presented in this quotation when reading the reports in the magazines, but also when looking at Karlwilli Damm's photo books.

To make comparisons between the life in the naturist resorts of the naturist members in Germany and those in other countries in Central Europe and North America –this would be easy be means of the material which has been very well prepared by Karlwilli Damm –a task for a folklorist.

By means of an analysis of the poses and behaviour shown on the photos it would also be possible to make a contribution to the “visual anthropology”, this young sub-discipline of anthropology, folklore and ethnology, which –like the photo history in the art history– just slowly begins to develop itself.

It is astonishing how wide the collection of books is (which can be found in Kassel) as far as the topic beauty dance is concerned. Here I only like to mention a few names as e.g. Olga Desmond (1891-1964), Celly de Rheydt and Isadora Duncan (1878-1927). In those days the denominational men and morality clubs protested against these nude and barefoot dancers.

But not only their activities have been documented, but also those of the “Volkswartbund” in the 50s and 60s when the law for the distribution of documents which might be liable to corrupt the young (§ 184 StGB=Criminal Code) ensured actions of confiscation having an enormous public appeal in the republic.

The magazine Die Schönheit (=the beauty), which first of all made the naturists separate from the nudists, is totally complete in the collection Damm, including the very rare special editions “Kunstgaben der Schönheit” (arts of beauty).

The branch naturist tourism which is hardly of any economic importance is being documented in Kassel right from its beginnings and only waits for someone doing a doctorate about this topic. The collection has been the basis for many dissertations and they are also part of the collection. Here are just a few of their titles: “Die Geschichte der FKK-Bewegung und die Beziehung zum Weltkampf, Familien-und Freizeitsport” (=the history of the naturist movement and its relation to sports competition, family and leisure sports, Cologne 1979), “Die deutsche Freikörperkultur als soziale Bewegung” (German naturism as a social movement, Berlin 1967) and e.g. “Wie denken Kinder über FKK?” (=what do children think of naturism? Bremen 1970).

The beginning eroticism of the naturist publications is well comprehensive, two of many titles to be found in the collection are e.g. “naturism and love” or “encyclopedia of naturist eroticism”.

A folklorist can easily reconstruct the contemporary ritual of “streaking” from Damm's article collection. The following magazines have been analysed e.g. Quick, Stern, Spiegel, Twen, Constanze, Konkret, Praline and many others. In this context I should mention the collection of cover pages from magazines which Damm collected since the end of the 60s. It would be worthy to make a small special exhibition of these pages.

Catchwords of Damm's list of books and magazines are “marriage”, “sports”, “ethics” and “education” –only to mention a few. Under these catchwords you will also find extracts from very rare magazines, as e.g. from the paper Neues Kriminal Magazin (=New Criminal Magazine) or Knoll's Mitteilungen für Ärzte (Knoll's message for doctors) and Lexika-Auszüge über\Nacktkultur und FKK (=extracts from encyclopedia about nude culture and naturism).

However, Karlwilli Damm did not only collect German magazines. In the US-American magazine Official Police the article “Expose of nudist-camp rituals” was published in July 1956, or e.g. the Illustrated Detective brought a report about “My 10 days in a Nudist Camp” in December 1955; in April 1932 the Outlook New York informed about the Soviet-Russian nudism and the Swiatowia did the same about the “beginning of naturist beaches in Poland”. The following heading from the Neue Illustrierte (06.07.1957) just sounds associative to that: “Die Nackten und die Drähte” (=The naked and the wires).

When you just read the titles of the essays from Damm's list, you will get a good impression of the history of culture and ethics in the 50s and 60s.

Somebody who wants to explore the history of the “persons with alternative views” (e.g. the “naturals” from Ascona) will find as much material as e.g. a literary historian who works on the organized physical status. Novels and stories from naturists from the twenties, fifties and sixties can be found, and the literary work of the nude photographer Herbert Rittlinger (1909-78) might not only be interesting for the Germanist, but also for the photo historian.

As a maniac collector and arhivist Damm has filled gaps in this collection either through loans from the former archive Wilke (Berlin) or through putting bound copies into the shelves. The book e.g. which Adolf Hitler read J. Lanz-Liebenfels's Nackt- und Rassenkultur im Kampfe gegen Muckertum und Tschandalakultur (1913) can just be found as a copy.

Scientific works about the North American nudism, as e.g. the book Hartman/Fithian/Johnson Nudist Society (New York, 1970), which can hardly be obtained by correspondence/lending – Damm could buy part of them in the original version.

You can also get information about the British conditions: e.g. by means of the bibliography of Alec Craig called The bibliography of nudism (London, 1954).

Karlwilli Damm wrote himself “a bibliography Adolf Koch” and three documentations about the following topics flew from his pen: nude-village, first clubs in Berlin, EUFK and the Geschichte der Landschulheime auf FKK-Grundlage (=history of the country houses used by school classes for short visits on a naturist basis; Kassel 1959). Damm did not belong to the brown nudes as he collected a “Documentation about Free swimmers- Bielefeld”- proletarian naturism" (E. Kuhmlehn, 1929). Τhe film historian will enjoy many programmes (e.g. for “Garden of Eden” and special programmes for the film “Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit” (=Ways to Power and Beauty) (1925).

And also the law historian just needs to help himself besides many documents concerning Lex Heintze and §184 StGB there are also files of 15 legal proceedings of the fifties and sixties, as e.g. the “report Prof. Nohl in the Damm matter because of nude swimming with pupils” (certainly also interesting for the education historian) or “Tribunal DFK against Adolf Koch”, and finally the important case files of the naturist youth against the township of Mainz because of the use of the house of youth in Mainz (1966) and the files of the Administrative Court Saarland in the case of the “Withdrawal of the rights of use – Lichtbund Saar against the town of Saarbrücken" (1959).

Apart from files and correspondence –especially interesting here is the correspondence between Charly Strasser and Adolf Koch from 1965/1966– Karlwilli Damm– as a real archivist of “his” movement– has also saved some realities, as e.g. club pennants and badges or also tapes, records, minutes of whole meetings being recorded on tapes and single lectures.

Partly these lectures are being archived with the corresponding photos or slides. A special rarity is a stereoscope from 1928 with which you can have a look at photos.

Certainly Damm was crazy about the history of the naturist movement, but the special emancipation of the people was of special importance to him –and he thought that the naturist movement could enormously contribute to it.

It should be the leitmotif of any work with the material being archived in Kassel to check the possible correctness of this hope and to examine the wrong developments of this “movement” to the National Socialism and to the conformism of the fifties and sixties.

(Translation from the German provided by the IFB)