Chronology of naturism

Prehistory

Antiquity, Middle Ages and Renaissance

Since the Age of Enlightenment and the Myth of the “good savage” of Rousseau, the concept of naturism and its practical application played a key function in our report/ratio with the body and the evolution of the Mœurs. The motivations of its Follower S as his symbolic system did not cease evolving/moving with the wire of the times, the accent being put at the beginning on the values hygienists, medical, morals and educational. These values remain today but the ecology takes importance within naturism. Our company perceives it today primarily like a leisure of holiday makers, but is unaware of all or almost its history and knows its values very little: the separation of nudity and the Sexuality (which for the naturists must remain field of the intimacy), the self-respect and others, the respect of the environment are the unchanged bases.

Beginning of the XXème century, the time of the pioneers

Naturism, formerly gymnosophie , was born in France, under the feather and in the entourage of the geographer Elisee Reclus, (second half of the 19th century). Elisee Reclus saw there at the same time a physical means of revitalization, a report/ratio with the body completely different from hypocrisy and taboos which prevailed then, a more convivial design of the life in society, and an incentive to respect planet. Towards the end of the 19th century, a current of ideas very close to naturism appears in the Germany of the emperor Guillaume II. At that time Sex and Nudité is subjects taboos (however in the north of Germany nudity existed in Sauna S as in Scandinavia). The birth of the naturist movement is a strong reaction to a growing Industrialization. Under these difficult work conditions and of life, one starts to think of other manners of living.

In 1893, the sociologist hygienist Heinrich Pudor writes one entitled book Nacktkultur (culture of naked), one of the first publications to preach the benefits of social nudity. According to him, the Man lost the body of sight and is some weakened. Pudor in parallel carries out a combat against the fashion of the corsets, showing its dangers on the female body. The creation of new types of ladies' garments, fuller, known as is followed from there reformists that the women often made they-even.

The concepts described by Pudor did not take a long time before being put into practice. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Wandervogel migratory birds German youth movement spread in first this concept of return to the Nature by the Nudité. They take for practice at the time of their excursions in full nature to entirely undress itself to benefit from a refreshing bath at the edge of a lake or from a river. They will practice other activities quickly naked, such as the gymnastic in gymnic behavior for example. Much more than one simple nudity: these young men and women seek to flee the hell of the cities, its Pollution and its excesses, wishing to live more healthily and adopt the sport and the dance in freedom.

Starting from 1902, magazines regularly appear on the emergence of the naturist culture . The Photographie also knows a revival in the field of the naked one where bodies are photographed in full nature, stripped of all erotism.

In 1903 with Lubeck, one assists with the creation of the first center gymnic , the Freilichtpark (park of the free light) by Paul Zimmermann (it will function until 1981). These spaces dedicated to the practice of the collective Nudité develop much, most of the time in an associative way.

It is in 1918 that the name of Frei-Körper-Kultur (Culture of the free body) is adopted. This movement is diffused then in the Germanic countries (Scandinavian Austria, Suisse, countries, Netherlands) before gaining the France in the Entre-deux-guerres, then North America starting from the Années 1950.

The rise of naturism in France

1903 S. Gay creates in France, with the Wood-Van, a naturist colony.
1907 the Legree abbot, with the agreement of its superiors, takes along its pupils to bathe without shirt in the Marseilles creeks. - * 1920, Kienné de Mongeot and Yvan Of Laval create Sparta Club, first club naturist
1922 Jacques Demarquette founds a naturist camp with Chevreuse.
1930 2 doctors, Andre and Gaston Durville, open a center in the Island of Villennes on the Seine (Physiopolis) where the 1st nudist congress was held. At the time, the naturist clubs practice therapies based on the healing virtues of the Sun, the Mer and the Vent, nudity being the best means of coming into contact with these elements. Hydrotherapy was recommended by Doctor Carton (naturist Lesson and treatments practices 1936). Founder of the review " naturist "
1931 creation of the CGF: Club Gymnique de France with Villecresnes 94, which perdure nowadays. * 1936 Léo Lagrange (1st under-secr. of State to the Sports and Leisures) and Freemasons, recognizes officially the utility of the movement naturiste.** 1944 Albert Lecocq and his Christiane wife creates the Club of the Greece Sun to the contribution of the Sections " To live " of Mongeot; with the idea (utopian?)of a club for each city, a ground for each club.* 1949 they open the great vacation center naturists: Center héliomarin CHM Vendays-Montalivet on the Aquitain littoral.
1950 foundation the French federation of naturism FFN. In proclamation of the Club of the Sun, written by Lecocq in 1950 one could read: " The Club of the Sun approves as a whole the naturist thought such as it was released since Hippocrates to Alexis Carrel" This reference to Carrel the man this unknown was reproached Lecoq. Indeed, being alarmed at the high number of the mentally ills and the criminals encumbering psychiatric hospitals and prisons, Carrel to reduce this social burden and to improve the race proposed the great ways: raising by the whip and elimination of the incurable by gas thanks to an establishment euthanasic .

It was necessary to wait more than 50 years so that this sentence is expurgée statutes of those, clubs of the sun which maintained without analysis this proclamation in its entirety.

1953 creation in Montalivet of the International federation which gathers the Federations of all countries recognized for their practice of a naturism family and organized
Années 1960 of tens of naturist centers are created everywhere in France. Militants leave their employment and launch out in the adventure, clearers and managers of small centers, they attract towards them the naturist families in search of a simple and natural life.
1961 opens Héliomonde the Essonne the largest ground naturist of Ile de France (47 ha) in the old sandstone career from where the paving stones were extracted from. Very close Paris. Members of the team of France of Volleyball ball involve themselves there. The sport, in gymnic behavior, holds a great place then. The Cortey challenge sends the best sportsmen of the clubs in tournaments for meetings in France and abroad. (swimming, shooting with the arc, ping pong, volleyball). Nauténa founds critérium with the veil Marcel Dratz (Frankly mason) which was naturist as of 103P0 and collaborator of the Commander Cousteau.

The need for a centralized management brings the creation of a finance company of the vacation centres: the Plowshare-Nat manages then, the CHM Montalivet, the Genesis, Ran of Chabrier, Héliomonde. Then El Portus in Spain which posed financial problems juridico thereafter.

Années 1970 the capacity of reception of the naturists in Aquitaine is saturated. One obtains the authorizations with the creation of a second and vaster Vacation center in seaside.
1974 adoption of the international definition of naturism: “Naturism is a manner of living in harmony with the nature, characterized by a practice of the joint nudity the purpose of which is to support the self-respect, the respect of the others and that of the environment”.

1975 Opening of EURONAT. The tourist push helping of the beaches are opened or authorized with naturism whereas it is still only tolerated. The naturist presence strongest is on the Aquitanian littoral, where currently there are as many naturist bathers than bathers in shirt, and on the Languedoc-Roussillon littoral (except for the seaside resort of Cape of Agde (naturist district) which is not naturist, although the bathers are naked there.
1983 the French naturist movement, by its Federation, the FFN, was recognized Youth movement and Popular education by the Ministry for Youth and the Sports. The social life of some was simplified, naturism being standardized, the inherent professional problems disappeared. Public swimming pools open time slots with the practitioners a little everywhere. His goals reached, the Fraternal Maçonnique Naturist even dissolves of it. The FFN then formed its own frameworks by specialized BAFA " naturists " and its GEOSTROPHIC Jeunes section set up. Those Ci animated the activities of summer of the young children of the vacation centres and offered spectacles. In Paris, the municipality opens to a time slot with the naturists with the Roger swimming pool Gall. In province also the naturists obtain, of the public swimming pools, one opening day. Saunas their reserve a time slot. The helping fashion, from Thalasso naturists emerge in Montalivet, Bélézy, Euronat etc attracting diversified customers and consumerist.
1993 the House of naturism opens in Paris.

Naturism in Germany, under the Nazi regime

In 1933, the election of Adolf Hitler is followed of a series of prohibitions, in particular with regard to the naturism, which he regards as one of the worst dangers threatening the German culture and morals.

One of the leaders Nazis, Hermann Goering declares:

naturism removes the natural decency of the woman and removes with the man any respect of the woman, carrying of this fact reached with the bases of any culture worthy of this name.

By a decree on March 3rd, 1933, Goering prohibits any bathe and other activities of outdoor in the state of nudity on the German territory. The majority of the publications and reviews naturist are destroyed. The anti-naturism of the Nazis is approved by the Pape Pie XI.

The police force Nazi is charged to make hunting for the naturists with an aim of destroying their movement and of confiscating their grounds. Some are imprisoned, off-set. The naturist organizations, supervised very near, try to continue their activities in clandestinity. The leagues of youth movements, such as the Wandervogel, dissolved and are integrated in the Jeunesses hitlériennes.

Hans Suren, appointed inspector of physical education to the direction of the service of work, brings a new concept of physical education differentiated according to the races which enters completely within the framework of the ideology Nazi. Author of the book Mensch und Sounds (the man and sun), particularly appreciated by Hitler, Suren preaches a national naturism, where the concept of pure race Germanic is emphasized through the physical exercise and nudity. This one obliges each individual thus to maintain his body from a eugenic point of view . The worship of the beauty starts.

The Nazis will be finally convinced by the speech that some naturists such as Suren knew to adapt to their ideology. In 1935, certain grounds are returned with the naturists authorizing them to practice the sport and the baths of sun in the simplest apparatus. However, the price to be paid is the total tender with the mode of Hitler. By adopting the principles of racial selection, the naturists thus reinforce without to have wanted it the propagation of the ideals Nazis.

It is however only in 1942 that the mode decides to legalize naturism. The naked bathe is again possible: a new decree is published authorizing the naturists to be undressed on the beaches or at the edge of the lakes insofar as they are certain not to be seen by thirds.

After the Second world war, one attends the rebirth of many naturist associations. Those very strongly reject the drifts imposed by the Nazism, and in addition make evolve their reform project cultural and social to a practice of naturism especially reserved at the times of leisures and relaxation.

After the 2nd world war

Naturism today

Whereas the federal license was obligatory for any access to a naturist space this one is more required only for adhesion with an affiliated Club. The number of bachelors is in clear regression, whereas the followers of the " complete nudity " are increasingly numerous and claim a right to naked in all places. The GEOSTROPHIC section young people has to cease its activities. The difficulties which the men alone encountered are levelled in the majority of the vacation centres. It is not yet the same in the clubs or the parity man women is to be respected; naturism there being practiced primarily in family. In France of the beaches, swimming pools are closed with naturism for various reasons called upon by the municipalities, the vacation centres owners change and lose their naturist specificity.

In the Fifties, France had less than 5 naturist centers; it has some in 2006 more than 130, of the small family center accommodating a few tens of people in the great centers of seaside which accommodate several thousands of them. Moreover, the naturist beaches of maritime littoral, edge of lake or river which are not the prolongation of a center are multiplied. The French federation of Naturism regoupe 150 Clubs with the last census of April 2006 and account more than 50 vacation centres in France, all sizes.

The naturist presence strongest is on the Money Coast (name given to the Aquitanian littoral). Currently, there are on the Aquitanian littoral as many naturist bathers bathers in shirts. First, and the greatest naturist centers are on this part of the Atlantique coast: Montalivet (common of Vendays-Montalivet), Euronat (commune of Grayan-and-the Hospital), Arnaoutchot (common of Hurdy-gurdy-Saint-Bosoms), the Jenny (common of Porge).

The Languedoc-Roussillon littoral knows also a strong naturist presence, in particular around Port Leucate and of Cape of Agde.

No the naturist center on the Riviera, where the natural landscape disappeared almost everywhere under the concrete. There are still some naturist beaches, in particular in the Cape Taillat, thanks to the Academy of the littoral which saved this sector. It should be noted that the Marseilles creeks are attended by the naturists since 1929.

Famous and splendid the Île of Raising has a naturist village, Héliopolis, which is not really a naturist center because opened with all the public ones. In Héliopolis the edge of the sea must imperatively remain free and accessible to all, no privatization of the littoral band is accepted. In XXIe century this naturist principle and ecologist remain always in force there, contrasting with the invading concrete of the littoral of the Riviera. The naturist joint owners of Héliopolis have " gelé" with their expenses a vast wooded area, where any construction is prohibited, which constitutes a natural reserve open to the public.

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