Berlin - A German bookshop owner has come up with a novel idea to promote a new book on the nudist culture of formerly communist East Germany - a reading to a naked audience. The event, set to take place in the north-eastern town of Pasewalk, is scheduled for April 1, but it's no joke, bookshop owner Helmut Maass insists.
The book, which celebrates East Germany's renowned "Freikoerperkultur" (FKK), draws on the recollections - and photographs - of holidaymakers in East Germany before the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
The publishers, Berlin-based Eulenspiegel, are enthusiastic about the publicity stunt. "This is great advertising for our book," a spokeswoman said.
Maass believes he is putting on a world first with his nudist book reading, which is sold out.
He has invited his audience to arrive clothed, as Germany is experiencing a chilly spring, and assures them his shop is adequately heated.
The windows of the modest bookshop are to be draped with curtains to keep voyeurs at bay.
East Germany's FKK movement is experiencing something of a revival.
A travel agent in the eastern city of Erfurt has laid on nudist charter flights this summer to Usedom, a Baltic island resort and home to a large nudist colony in the communist era.
Enrico Hess says tickets are selling rapidly for the first flight on July 5. He has had applications from as far afield as Australia.
The FKK movement dates its origins to the founding of the first nudist society in Berlin in 1906.
While the movement faded in the western states, it flourished in the communist east, with bathing resorts established all along the Baltic coast and at the inland lakes frequented by East German holidaymakers.
Author Thomas Kupfermann induced devotees to send him their photographs and secured a contribution from East German television reporter Hans-Joachim Woller, who covered the FKK scene before 1989.
The naked woman shown on the cover is to present the book to the Pasewalk audience on April 1 - naked of course.
