She applied the “Page 99 Test” to her new book, Before Porn Was Legal: The Erotica Empire of Beate Uhse, and reported the following: The central character in Before Porn was Legal is a colorful woman by the name of Beate Uhse. Think equal parts Leni Riefenstahl, Hugh Heffner, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Born in 1919 to one of Germany’s first female physicians, she flew for the Luftwaffe before embarking on a second career as an erotica entrepreneur. At first, that meant mail-order sales of condoms to Germans in dire straits after World War II and self-help books to people who were woefully ignorant about sex. In the 1960s, though, the firm opened store-front erotica boutiques, and in 1975 West Germany legalized porn. By the 1980s pornography was Beate Uhse’s bread and butter, and her firm was the world’s largest erotica enterprise.Learn more about Before Porn Was Legal at the University of Chicago Press website.
For Germans, the name “Beate Uhse” is synonymous with “erotica.” In reality, the history of erotica in Germany is more complex, involving dozens of firms, surprisingly tolerant public officials (even in the 1950s), and customers who used erotica catalogs as conversation starters as much as they used them as a source of goods. Before Porn was Legal follows the industry, its consumers, and the state that regulated it through the second half of the 20th century.
But there is no escaping the celebrity of Beate Uhse, especially because of what Uhse herself called the “Beate Uhse Myth”: the story the firm carefully cultivated about itself, its founder, and German history. The firm initially created the myth for marketing purposes, but as Beate Uhse’s fame increased, the myth became a way for Germans to understand their history. In the Beate Uhse Myth, the Nazi past, the hard postwar years, the economic miracle, and sexual liberation formed a seamless progression, with Beate Uhse leading the way.
Page 99 focuses on a key moment in the evolution of the myth. Through the 1950s and early 1960s, Uhse’s mail-order catalogs described her as a wife and mother who understood couples’ sexual problems in the hard aftermath of the war. This was a smart formula for customers who didn’t want to be associated with smut. Suddenly, in 1963, Uhse added a new element to the biographical blurbs in her catalog: her adventures with the Luftwaffe. The question is: Why would she exchange a respectable story about being a wife and mother for a story about women far outside traditional roles – and which was a reminder of Nazi militarism to boot?
The answer: Because Uhse had discovered that while the wife-and-mother story spoke to customers, the Luftwaffe story spoke to judges (who heard her cases on youth-endangerment and obscenity) and journalists (who provided free publicity as they covered her expanding business).
“By implying an elevated social status and service to the state in the Nazi era, the Luftwaffe story helped to establish an elevated social status and service to the common good in the postwar years.” That is, Uhse wasn’t a lower-class degenerate. This was very helpful with judges, most of whom had also served the Nazi state.
“By portraying an individualistic experience of corporeal pleasure in a totalitarian context, the Luftwaffe story suggested the compatibility of sexual pleasure and liberal individualism.” This worked well with journalists: they tended to be liberals.
“And in connection with [Uhse’s] initiative in addressing women’s need for contraception, her conviction in expanding her business, and her resoluteness against those who would shut her down, the Luftwaffe story signaled self-assuredness, willingness to buck convention, and strength against adversity.” This was the kind of story that sold newspapers and told judges that Uhse was a serious businesswoman.
All the while, Uhse also continued to market her status as a wife and mother. In other words, by appearing as both a conventional wife and mother and a daring Luftwaffe pilot, she could appeal to a wider variety of publics.
Too academic? Let’s hear it in the words of Uhse’s stepson, who grew up with the business:
“’She was trying to get erotica out of the gutter. And [as she presented herself] she was predestined for this: she was the daughter of a doctor, she came from an estate, she was with the Luftwaffe, she flew, she had three children ... And she was married and directed a firm, and so she couldn’t be what people imagined about her. Somehow the whole packet, doctor’s daughter, daughter of the countryside, test pilot, wife and mother ... that was all in all a positive image.’”
--Marshal Zeringue
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