In Stuttgart, history will be displayed as rarely before: completely naked. The Baden-Württemberg House of History has sold out all tickets for its two special night tours, where the only permitted item of clothing will be a towel to sit on. The invitation is clear: “At this time, the exhibition may only be visited without clothes.” There are no confusing dress codes here: simplicity is taken to the extreme.
The proposal is part of Frei Schwimmen—Gemeinsam?! (“Free Swimming—Together?!”), an exhibition on the history of bathing and the shifting notions of public morality and sartorial decency. The idea of strolling through a museum as nature intended has sparked such interest that tickets sold out more than two weeks before the first date. Apparently, in times of empty museums and subsidised culture, nothing draws a crowd quite like the promise of wearing nothing at all.
In Germany, public nudity is far from a marginal phenomenon. Its tradition goes back to the Middle Ages and was revived in the late 19th century with the Freikörperkultur (FKK) movement, which maintains that nudity carries neither shame nor sexual connotations but rather encourages a healthier relationship with one’s own body. At its peak, in the 1960s and 70s, it counted hundreds of thousands of members on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Today, although the number has dropped to around 30,000, beaches, water parks, and saunas still maintain textilfrei —clothing-free—areas for their users.
The exhibition also revisits historical episodes showing that nudity has not always been accepted without reservations. In the early 19th century, for example, men and women bathed naked in the River Blau in Ulm, in full view of the Lutheran cathedral, prompting the authorities to ban bathing near the city centre. It also covers changes in bathing attire: the swimsuit, in the strict sense, only appeared in the early 20th century.
Today, the subject is not without controversy. In Baden-Württemberg, some swimming pools have banned the burkini, while others have prohibited loose-fitting swimwear, citing hygiene reasons. In other parts of Germany, whether women may swim topless depends on local regulations, with disputes sometimes ending in police intervention. Ironically, what might cause scandal in a municipal pool becomes a cultural activity if organised by a museum.
The organisers explain that the idea for the nude visits came from the association GetNakedGermany and that it perfectly fits the spirit of the exhibition: a journey through centuries of bathing history where, for once, there is no need to ask what to wear to the museum. Judging by the enthusiasm for tickets, the next blockbuster exhibition in Europe may not be about art or history … but about the absence of both.
