49. German nudism

Man and sunlight / by Hans Surén; authorized translation from the 67th edition by David Arthur Jones; with foreword by C. W. Saleeby. (Slough, [Eng.] : Sollux, 1927)

“A nation should be as one in the will to promote, by every means and with untiring energy, strength among its people. The upbuilding of morals and of character is closely bound up with this.” The author of these lines, Hans Surén (1885-1972), was one of the most important propagators of nude gymnastics in Weimar and Nazi Germany. Born into a military family, he served as an officer in the German colony of Cameroon during World War I. After his release from British captivity, he became the director of the German army school for physical exercise in Wünsdorf near Berlin, a post he held until 1924.

“Man and Sunlight” is the English translation of his book “Der Mensch und die Sonne”. Published in 1924, the book is just one in a series of bestsellers that extolled the hygienic benefits of nude gymnastics and sun bathing. Hans Surén’s success as a writer was due to a message that denigrated intellectual achievements and encouraged young men to define success in life in terms of their physical development. Nude gymnastics would not only make men healthy and physically attractive. It would also strengthen their moral character and manly self control.

After the Nazi take-over of power, Surén published a revised version of “Mensch und Sonne” in which he presented his gymnastics system as an expression of the “Aryan-Olympic Spirit” in line with Nazi anti-Semitism. In the Third Reich, Surén’s career culminated in his appointment as “Special Plenipotentiary for the Physical Education of the Rural Population” by Reich Peasant Leader Walter Darré in 1936. During the war, he was imprisoned for reasons that are not entirely clear. According to one account he was arrested for masturbating on his balcony. If true, it seems quite ironic that such an avid advocate of manly self-control might have failed to become “master of his own domain”.