Richard Storm

Richard Ungewitter (born December 18, 1869 in Artern , Saxony ; † December 17, 1958 in Stuttgart ) was a pioneer of the German nudist movement and one of its first organizers. Ungewitter was an anti-Semite and was close to folk ideas.

Life

Ungewitter initially worked as a horticultural assistant before living in Norway for two years . When he returned to Germany, he helped found the Simonsbrotfabrik . After their bankruptcy he worked as a sales representative.

Through Heinrich Pudor , who published under the pseudonym Heinrich Scham , he came to nudism, which at that time was still called " nude culture ". Today he is considered one of their early pioneers. He became known in 1903 through a brochure entitled People Became Naked Again , which reached a circulation of almost 100,000 copies within a few years. His first book Nudity appeared in January 1906 (full title Nudity from a developmental, health, moral and artistic point of view ). Repeated attempts to take legal action against the book failed because of the experts summoned by the court, who testified in favor of Ungewitter. This is how Theodor Lipps ( University of Munich ) expressed himself in his report:

"The movement aimed at nudist culture is now widely ramified and, like such movements as a rule, has a well-founded core."

In the following years Ungewitter continued to promote the nude culture. The best known of his works is the book Nackt , published in 1908 . In 1908 he also founded the "Association for Hygienic, Ethical and Aesthetic Culture". This second nudist group in Germany (after an association founded in Essen in 1898 ) had around 50 members, mainly in southern Germany .

Both his book Nackt and his book Nacktheit und Kultur , published in 1910, were the subject of several years of legal disputes, in which, however, he was largely able to enforce his legal opinion. On April 24, 1912, Criminal Chamber III of the Royal District Court in Stuttgart rejected the prosecutor's request for his book Naked to be rendered unusable . All other courts in Germany and other countries followed this legal opinion, according to which naturist, illustrated publications are permitted. Ungewitter also showed himself naked in his books, mostly in the woods. In 1911 he founded the “Lodge of the Rising Life”, to which, according to his statements, over 800 people belonged on June 17, 1912. In their regularly published publication Confidential Messages , the members advocate unabashed nude bathing, undisturbed clothing and sometimes miles of nude hikes. In 1914 the name of the lodge was changed to "Treubund für Aufsteigendes Leben".

Already in Nacktheit und Kultur (1910) Ungewitter wrote: “If every German woman were to see a naked Germanic man more often, so many exotic foreign races would not run after them [...] For reasons of healthy selection, I therefore demand a nude culture, so that the strong and healthy mate, but weaklings do not reproduce. ”(Ungewitter, 1910, p. 130) After difficulties with censorship during the World War, he then (Stuttgart 1919) published the radical text Germany's rebirth through blood and iron , to which numerous extremists such as Ernst Böttger, Ludwig Fahrenkrog , Ernst Hunkel , Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels , Friedrich Lienhard contributed. He himself contributed “racial deterioration through blood poisoning”. “The blood of the lower race in its simpler and different composition suppresses and overgrows the finer different components and properties of the nobler blood. Because the blood of the dark races (especially Negroes and Jews) contains coarser and heavier components. Mixing different kinds of races accordingly leads to the disintegration and demise of the races concerned, especially the more highly predisposed. "(Ungewitter:" Nacktheit und Aufstieg "1920, p. 118)

An amendment to the statutes implemented by Ungewitter in 1923 introduced the commitment to " racial hygiene " ( eugenics ) and also called for a commitment to a political party. The eugenic orientation was rejected by many members. Therefore, larger groups separated from the mostly dominated by him Treubund , which then lost its importance. In the Nazi state, however, he received financial support.

In 1953 Ungewitter was made an honorary member of the German Association for Naturism (DFK). He died in December 1958 on the eve of his 89th birthday in Stuttgart.

Awards and honors

• 1953 Honorary membership in the German Association for Naturism (DFK) eV

Works

• People who have become naked again , 1903
• Nudity , 1905
• Diet heresies. The protein theory with its consequences, as a cause of disease, and its scientifically founded adoption , 1908
• Naked. A critical study , 1909
• Culture and nudity. A claim , 1911
• Nudity and culture. New demands , 1913
• Racial degradation by Judah , 1919
• Nudity and ascent. Goals for the renewal of the German people , 1920
• Rescue or downfall of the German people. For German born only! , 1921
• Nudity and morality. Ways to save the German people , 1925
• From degeneracy to breed care. A wake-up call at the twelfth hour , 1934
• Vaccination memorandum , 1938

As editor

• Nudity in evolutionary, health, moral and artificial lighting , 1907 (Reprint of the Stuttgart edition 1907 and 1913, Dt. Doctors-Verlag, Cologne 1979. ISBN 3-7691-1904-5 )
• Germany's rebirth through blood and iron , 1916

literature

• Georg Schückler: Dangerous roots of the nudism movement. Church hatred and anti-Semitism from Richard Ungewitter, the "father of German nudism". Volkswartbund , Cologne-Klettenberg 1953.
• Kai Buchholz et al. (Ed.): The life reform. Drafts for the redesign of life and art around 1900 . Volume 1. Verlag Haeusser, Darmstadt 2001. ISBN 3-89552-077-2
• Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolwe: "The new person". Physical culture in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic . Publishing house Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2004. ISBN 3-8260-2772-8
• Andreas Schmölling: Traces of life of a light fighter. From the creativity and work of Richard Ungewitter (1868–1958), life reformer and pioneer of nudism, in: Aratora 12 (2002), pp. 16–49

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Arnd Krüger : There Goes This Art of Manliness: Naturism and Racial Hygiene in Germany, in: Journal of Sport History 18 (Spring, 1991), 1, 135 - 158. Ungewitter naked on p. 152. library.la84.org

Web links

• Literature by and about Richard Ungewitter in the catalog of the German National Library