Tough and controversial:sex shop pioneer Beate Uhse

Beate Uhse is considered the most successful entrepreneur of the German post-war period - controversial because of her role during the Nazi regime and her business with sex and eroticism. The sex shop pioneer died on July 16, 2001.

by Stefanie Grossmann

First a pilot, then a pioneer in the erotic industry:Beate Uhse's life sounds like an exciting bestseller about a courageous woman who flouts social conventions and often offends them. During World War II, she flies for the German Wehrmacht. She later remained silent about her attitude during the Nazi era - like so many of her generation. And because she discovered a gap in the market in the post-war years and woke the Germans from their slumber when it came to sex, she earned millions with education and eroticism. In the 1960s, sexuality became a public topic - also thanks to Beate Uhse. But her role is more that of a tough businesswoman than a feminist promoting women's emancipation.

Sexuality and sexual hygiene was already a topic at home

Born on October 25, 1919 in East Prussia, Beate Dorothea Köstlin grew up as the youngest of three children in privileged, cosmopolitan circumstances:her father Otto runs a large farm in Wargenau, her mother Margarete Köstlin-Räntsch is one of the first female doctors in Germany . At the age of three, little Beate preferred to sit on a horse instead of playing with dolls. Both parents enlighten their children early on, they talk openly with them about sexuality and sexual hygiene. Young Beate attends reform pedagogical boarding schools on Juist and in the Odenwald. She is athletic, learns to sail and at the age of 15 becomes Hessian champion in the javelin throw. After graduating at 16, she went to England as an au pair for a year and improved her language skills. Back in Wargenau near Cranz, at her mother's request, she completed a domestic apprenticeship on her parents' estate.

Uhse got his pilot's license at the age of 18

But the young woman aspires to higher things:Fascinated by Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight in 1927, she harbored the desire to become a pilot from an early age. Her forward-thinking parents support her in her career aspirations. And so, in August 1937, she took her first flying lesson at a flying school near Berlin. Just three weeks later, she completed her first solo flight. She flies sport planes and biplanes. On her 18th birthday she gets her pilot's license - as the only woman among 60 trainee pilots.

From November 1937 to April 1938, as an intern at Bücker Flugzeugbau in Rangsdorf, she went through all areas of the company - and began aerobatic training. Her flight instructor is Hans-Jürgen Uhse, who later became her husband. She takes part in air racing and aerobatic competitions. In 1938 she switched to the Alfred Friedrich aircraft factory in Strausberg as a test pilot. As a stunt pilot, she also takes part in films by the film company UFA and acts as a double for well-known actors such as René Deltgen in tricky stunt scenes.

Beate Uhse becomes a pilot with the German Wehrmacht

On September 28, 1939, 19-year-old Beate tied the knot with aviation officer Hans-Jürgen Uhse as part of a wartime wedding. In 1943 their son Klaus was born. Just one year later, in May 1944, her husband died in a plane collision while on wartime missions. Meanwhile, the young mother transferred to the front as a Luftwaffe pilot in a squadron of fighter planes from Berlin-Tempelhof until 1945. She holds the rank of captain and is one of the few female pilots in the German Wehrmacht.

Escape from the Red Army:On the plane to Schleswig-Holstein

When the Red Army invaded Berlin, the young widow fled by plane from Gatow to Schleswig-Holstein in April 1945. Her son and nanny are also on board. After the end of the war, Beate Uhse spent six weeks in British captivity near the German-Danish border. She recovers from breaking both legs and learns to walk again. As a refugee, Beate Uhse initially lives with her son in the school library in the village of Braderup, which has a population of 400. Since the occupying powers forbid flying activities, the destitute mother struggles through with various jobs:she works in agriculture, teaches English and sells toys.

"Font X" explains contraception

Incidentally, the enlightened Beate Uhse advises young women on contraception. Many do not want to have children due to lack of housing and fears for the future. Nevertheless, many become pregnant unintentionally. She takes advantage of the need for information and writes on two A6 pages entitled "Font X" about contraception using the Knaus-Ogino method, known as counting the days. "It should be the natural right of every human being to determine the size of his family according to his social circumstances," she writes. Beate Uhse paid five pounds of butter to print the first 1,000 copies. But behind the business idea is not alone the desire for enlightenment and unselfish idealism - the young widow simply has to earn money.

To Flensburg with "Ewe" Rotermund and the children

In 1947 she met the Flensburg businessman Ernst-Walter "Ewe" Rotermund. The open-air and eco-fanatic helps her duplicate the brochure. In the end, she sold around 32,000 copies at two Reichsmarks per booklet, earning seed capital for further business. Two years later, Beate Uhse married her great love "Ewe" Rotermund. He brings son Dirk and daughter Bärbel into the marriage. They move into an apartment in Flensburg. Their son Ulrich was born in May of the same year.

Uhse founds an erotic mail-order company - and ends up in court

In 1951, the mother of four founded the "Beate Uhse mail order company" with four employees. She not only sells love dragees and negligees, but also condoms and dildos. In the same year she ended up in court for the first time, because so-called rubber peters for masturbation are considered lewd objects within the meaning of paragraph 184. Again and again there are accusations, but the entrepreneur wins almost all of the approximately 2,000 cases, 500 of them alone for aiding and abetting indecency. In 1953 the company already had 14 employees, and three years later sales exceeded the million mark. By the early 1960s, the company already had five million customers.

But Beate Uhse is restless and wants to expand further. And so the next step came in 1962:at a time when sex without a marriage certificate was still considered fornication, she opened the world's first sex shop in Flensburg on December 23 - the "specialist shop for marriage hygiene". Her lawyer had advised her to open the shop at Christmas, as there were fewer attacks by outraged, fussy citizens at that time.

Media titles "Beate Schweinkram" and "Orgas-Muse"

As a result, there are criminal proceedings against her again, the press dubs her as "Orgas-Muse", "Beate Schweinkram", "pleasure maker" and "sex shop queen". The German Book Trade Association (Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels) and the Flensburg Tennis Club are refusing their publisher membership because of moral concerns. Uhse then builds its own square. She is so successful that she is even able to buy her own Cessna. In 1969, the new company building was opened, which the citizens christened "Sexeck" - it was home to Europe's first open-plan office, which also housed Beate Uhse's desk. She can be contacted by every employee, everyone just calls her Beate. In 1970 she sponsored the Love and Peace Festival on Fehmarn - also to make her brand known in the hippie and student scene.

As successful as Beate Uhse is in business, things are not going so well in private life. The Rotermund couple grow apart. Her husband has been having affairs for years, and the marriage finally breaks up in 1972.

Beate Uhse earns resentment from feminists with porn films

With the legalization of pornography in 1975, the entrepreneur started selling videos. For feminists like Alice Schwarzer, this is where a blatant caesura takes place:Why does a woman - primarily for male clients - have films made that turn women into objects and contain scenes that glorify violence? Critics therefore complain to this day that she was never concerned with equal rights for women, but only with profit. Criticism rolls off Beate Uhse, she says in 1985 in the "Zeit":"I am not Jesus, but an entrepreneur."

While the sex business continues to boom, the sons fall out. In 1981 the company was split up, with Orion Versand becoming a competing company. In 1983 Uhse was diagnosed with stomach cancer and was cured. Her son Klaus, on the other hand, loses the fight against the insidious disease and dies in 1984.

Beatee Uhse AG IPO:share goes through the roof

At the age of 75, the sports enthusiast entrepreneur got her diving license in the Maldives. This is followed by awards such as the Federal Cross of Merit in 1989. In 1997 she received the Venus Award, the film prize of the erotic industry, for her life's work. In the laudatory speech it says:"She is quite simply the pioneer of the entire erotic industry". In 1999, Beate Uhse AG went public - the share went through the roof, but was completely oversubscribed.

Two years later, on July 16, 2001, Beate Uhse died of pneumonia in Switzerland at the age of 81. She no longer lives to see her company go under - after failed debt restructuring and loans, it files for bankruptcy in 2017.

Feminists' criticism of Beate Uhse remains

Even after her death, Beate Uhse remained a controversial figure. In private, she apparently longed for love, but in business she was on the hunt for sex for others. As much as she was admired by many for her courage, her entrepreneurial flair and her open approach to sexuality - a thorn remains in the consideration of feminists in particular. The magazine "Emma" falls in a Portrait 2019 a harsh judgement:"Beate Uhse is an emancipation. One who emancipates itself at the expense of women and sticks with guys. One who can do everything and does everything. One who is always there. At the forefront. Side by side On the other side she fights with her comrades. In the Nazi war as in the sex war. Yesterday with bombs. Today with porn."