German Paths to Health and Beauty
WEOE ZU KRAFT UND SCHONHEIT is a six-reel " film of physical culture propaganda which has had an astonishing vogue in Germany. The Ufa company gave me a private view of it and I was impressed by this pictorial evidence of a cult, almost a religion, which is destined to have a profound influence on all Europe. The film. started by a comparison of the ancient Greek and the modern. European. The Venus of Milo came to w life. A corset was laced over her flowing symmetries. Then the constricting whalebone melted away and by some magic of the cinema I saw what happened to Venus's inside—how some of it was squeezed up and some of it pressed clOwn. Hardly had I time to gasp, before a new- born baby met my gaze. Apparently one cannot begin to take-exercise too young, for this ereatuie was doing regular physical jerks in its nurse's hand. " What a life ! " it seemed to say,' and winked at Me. Next I saw a man . asleep, showing the. right and wrong way to breathe. Then there was a girl typewriting in the wrong position ; first her clothes " faded put," , then her fleah, allowing me to draw what moral I pleaSed from a bent baekbone and distressed diaphragm. Then in quick succession Fame Meinsendik's damsels dancing eurhythmically on the sands of the Warinsee, Lieutenant' j. P. Muller (of My System ") rolling naked in the snow ; Lord Balfour at tennis ; Babe Ruth batting ;. Mr. Lloyd George playing goll• ; ;A* Nadi feneing ; ''Niddflitipekova imitating a tea caddy ; Karsavina in slow motion—this last a jolly view. My head swam !
All this has a moral. By every means in their power, the Germans are seeking to become the healthiest nation in the world and to deflect the energies of their youth from militarism to athletics. Of the success of this " sport kultur " there can be' no question. " Back-to- nature " enthusiasts throng the forests, and on every bookstall are displayed popular magazines devoted to beauty, boxing, and nakedness. The latter cult has a club of its own in Berlin, with many thousands of membeis (The Reichsverband fur Freikoiperkultur). • I am aware that many Gentians look with disfavour Or derision on this particular movement, and no doubt it would be an ekaggeration to say that it is at present a powerful organization. Still; a perfectly serious group Of men and women bicycle out each Sunday into the Woods near Berlin, and ' there divest themselves of all their clothes, returning for a time to the nearest approach to CavecreatureS permitted by short-sight, corns; and Other cruel concomitants of civilization: ' I interviewed the president of the' Berlin branch of this organization and could not doubt the ideals behind the movement. TO glory in the sun and. air, to -harden the nerves and freshen the skin, are no unworthy aims. There -may be individuals in 'these clubs- who •pursue•• the cult from dtibious"inotiVes, but I gathered from various conveisa- - tions that they are rare. Although the average German one meets has never heard of this Nacktheitkultur, everyone, on the other hand, is interested in the sports movement, and the Week-end Bewegung. What • a nation it is for organization ! Rumour has it that the municipal authorities of Berlin wrote to the L.C.C., asking information as to how the Saturday to Monday excursions in England were managed, under the impres- sion that no such exodus as that to Brighton or Blackpool could possibly happen without official supervision.
A railway station is probably the best place in which to view a " cross-section " of the inhabitants of any country. Rich and poor meet here ; you may observe their complexions, temper, destination, the luggage they carry, clothes they wear, papers they read. In all these details, Germany has changed. No longer do the napes of middle-aged men fold over their collars ; and fat old women are as rare as officers in uniform. Open necks, bare headS, tanned faces, are favoured by the boys and girls of the new Germany. The " backfisch " of my schooldays has vanished. The bubi-kopf-ed (shingled) damsel has taken her place : she carries racquet and bathing suit in summer, and skis in winter; and she reads papers like Sport and Sonne, or emancipated articles like one I saw in a well-known weekly entitled " 0 Gott, sind die Papas dumm ! "
Whenever sports are held at the big new Stadium at Berlin, crowds flock thither. It is a gigantic place with every sort of apparatus and contrivance to further the progress of the brown, bull-necked young athletes of both sexes who train there.
During my visit there I was amused to see a group of damsels, rather" clemmed with cold, I think, who were being taught diving by numbers. The task before them was a back somersault off a springboard. Now in England or America—say in the swimming pools of Asbury Park or Margate—there would be no drill sergeant, no word of command. But here stood an Unteroffizier. Each dripping figure collected herself at the end of the spring- board and did not shiver herself off it until ordered. She came out of the water smartly, listened to a criticism- of her performance, and then took her place-in the waiting queue. It was much more thorough than our methods, much less pleasant.
Another group of great big girls—fit mothers for Pome- ranian Grenadiers—were prancing round a drill hall to a piano. Near by, a platoon of boys were being taught to skip under an instructor.
We may smile if we like at the German system, but very likely we shall smile on the wrong side of our faces after the Olympic Games at Amsterdam in 1928. Nothing is being left to chance. An elaborate technique, moun- tains of statistics in files and card indices, have already been compiled with regard to performance tests and the physiology of exertion. They do as much writing as they do running at the Stadium and there must be a clerk for every athlete and a scientist to every score.
In one laboratory that I visited, a Professor was charting the dilatation of the hearts of athletes. He showed me also a roonaful of test tubes and retorts where the breath of runners was being captured in rubber bags and weighed, °measured, analysed, in order to ascertain its alveolar content, whatever that may be. In the anthropomorphic section, a nurse, surrounded by cameras and strange devices, was engaged in photo: graphing all the young.-Apollos in the making and tracing the profile of their spines by means of a recording needle. The, exact purpose of these and other measurements would be tedious to explain, but roughly, an accurate record of measurements compared with perfornh3.nces his evolved certain standards whereby the capacity of any athlete may be gauged, so that he will not waste his time in preparing for sports for which he is structurally unsuited. Much more than mere bone and muscle comes under the scrutiny of the scientists. Not content with knowing his physique, they desire to probe his psyche also.
One machine that I experimented with was designed to test my nervous reflex by recording the number of dots that I could make in a given square in a, given time. , Another instrument consisted of a rubber disc which I had to tap as quickly as possible for half a minute—the. result being recorded by an instrument like a recording barograph, with a moving needle scribbling its inexorable rune. The wavy line which I made revealed the gloomy secrets of my Ego, and I felt thoroughly ashamed of it. Humiliating also was a test executed before a moving drum, which flashed relentless lights at me so quickly that the brain jibbed and sent idiotic messages to the hand. The truth is that my eyes were roving about the room.
I have written enough to show that the Germans, with their Government behind them, seek their new Kultur with the seriousness and the self-sacrifice that they did the old. And it is all to the good that this thorough- ness is being devoted to health and happiness, rather than to war games and the billeting of Uhlans. Something useful should come of it, F. YEATS-BROWN.
Previous page
