During the summer of 1975 I took a working vacation to Germany to gather material for a couple of travel magazines I sold to on a fairly regular basis. Of course, I did all of the usual tourist spots along the Rhine and Mosel rivers in the hope that I could find an angle the other travel writers had not worked to death, but I knew I really needed something that was not mainstream. One day, while in Prum, a town in the Eifel mountains near Germany's border with Belgium, I bought a copy of the German magazine Stern. In many ways Stern resembled Life magazine of that time. The difference, and what a difference, was that Stern contained full frontal pictures of nude people. At that time only a few men's magazines in the US published similar pictures, and those magazines were sold to adults only. The Germans consider Stern a family magazine.
Back in my room at the pension a couple of blocks from the BanhofI (railway station), I thumbed through the magazine. I read German reasonably well and read the captions under the pictures and cartoons, but didn't take time to read any of the articles. I was just scanning to see if there was something interesting enough to spend time reading it. That's when a full color ad caught my eye. A travel agency was offering a week at an FKK Strand on Sylt for a reasonable price. At that time a dollar was worth 3.66 DM (Deutsche Mark), so the price quoted came to about $350, well within my budget limit. "That," I thought to myself, "is the different travel article I've been looking for. Besides, it will be fun to scope out the bare-bottomed gals."
For the uninitiated, FKK is the abbreviation for Frei KΓΆrper Kulture (nudism). The ad was for a week's stay at a nudist resort on the island of Sylt of Germany's north-west coast, almost within sight of Danemark.
I called the travel agency and asked when the weather on Sylt was the warmest, and was told that after the first week of July the temperatures should be near 30Β° Celsius (around 80Β°F). "Damn," I thought, "I'm supposed to head home then." I looked at my day timer and found that although I was scheduled to return home on July 3, I had no pressing assignments, or submission due dates until after the first of August. Moreover, my bank account was still sufficiently in the black to allow me to stay over a week or two longer.
The next morning I called the travel agency that had run the ad and made a reservation for the week of July seventh, ten days from the day I made the reservation. During those ten days I went to Belgium to do an article on the Battle of the Bulge, and another on the Nuts Museum, and one at Malmedy where during the final days of WWII Nazi SS men lined a bunch of American POWs up against a wall and machine-gunned them.
On the way back to Germany, I stopped in Echternach, Luxembourg and visited the statue of General George Patton there.
I didn't have a car yet, but train service in Germany is excellent so when the time came, I took the train from Prum to the city of Westerland on the island of Sylt.
Westerland is the island's principal city, and is located essentially at the center of the island. It was late when I got there so I checked into a hotel and went to dinner at one of the local restaurants. The next morning I went to the travel agent's office on the island and introduced myself and asked for details about the FKK vacation I had signed up for.
The girl at the reception desk was a pretty blond with a pair of the bluest eyes I've ever seen. She also had a pair of braless breasts that threatened to burst out of her almost transparent blouse at any moment. However, she was far too young to be interested in an old fart like me so we discussed only the details of my stay on the island.
The nude beach where I was to stay was on the northern leg of the T-shaped island. A shuttle bus would take me to the pension I had been booked into, etc., etc., etc.
Twenty minutes later I was on the shuttle bus. The ride took all of fifteen minutes. I checked in with the manager of the pension and went to my room to stow my luggage.
The day was warm so I changed into swim trunks, a T-shirt, clogs, and grabbed my camera and a beach towel and headed out to see whatever was there to see.
From the front door of the pension to the beach was about a kilometer (six tenths of a mile), a pleasant walk. As I said, the day was warm β somewhere between 75Λ and 80ΛF. There was a light breeze blowing from the north-northwest, but it was not enough to chill me. As is so often the case in Germany, the sky was almost overcast. Nevertheless, the beach was crowded with people of all ages taking advantage of the opportunity to be outdoors under a warm, summer sky.
Keep in mind that Sylt is on Germany's far north-west. Temperatures approaching 80ΛF are rare. Cloudy, rainy weather is far more common than is bright sunny weather. When it is nice, the people take as much advantage of it as their work schedules permit.
After walking for about fifteen minutes I saw the sign I was looking for. Translated, it said that the beach from that point on was for nude bathers. I went into a nearby changing shed, shucked off my trunks and T-shirt, stuffed them into the string bag in which I had my beach towel and headed on toward the water. As I left the shed, the door to the women's side opened and out stepped a woman whom I can only describe as a Valkurie out of the old Norse legends. She was tall, statuesque, full bosomed, blond, and perfectly proportioned. It took me a moment to get my eyes back in their sockets, and to find my voice, but I managed to introduce myself as an American writer doing research for a travel magazine. Then this Nordic goddess introduced herself. Her name was Hilda, and she was on Urlaub (vacation) from her job in Hamburg where she was a secretary for an international shipping company.
Hilda invited me to join her at her Strandkorb (wicker beach chair/shelter). She said hers was big enough for two people and that she would enjoy having someone to talk to.
I wasn't about to turn down her invitation. Although pale, her nude body was so perfectly proportioned that I had difficulty deciding which part to cast my eyes upon. From the top of her blond head to the tips of her toes, she was beautiful. I saw not a mole or blemish of any kind anywhere on her body. Her pubic hair was as blond as that on her head, and was so sparse that cleft between her labia major was clearly visible. So was her somewhat oversize clitoris. As for her breasts: they must have been 36Ds with nipples that were at least a half inch long and a quarter inch in diameter. I had to swallow every time my eyes turned to them, my mouth watered so much. Why I didn't get an erection, I do not know. Perhaps it was because everyone on the beach was as naked as Hilda and I were, and it would have been inappropriate to show the excitement I was feeling.
Hilda's Strandkorb was a large wicker structure almost two meters wide, a little over two meters high, and a meter deep. The top portion resembled a band shell. The base of the seat was about knee high, and was covered with a cloth covered foam rubber pad. Covered foam rubber pillows padded the back. It was definitely made for comfort. As we stowed the bundles we were carrying on the seat of the shelter, Hilda asked, "Do you want to swim right away, or would you like to sit here a few minutes to drink a cup of coffee and get acquainted?"
