Nudists are squeezed off beaches by 'trouser police'

[T_i_B]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/28/wger28.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/08/28/ixportal.html

Miss Neustadt, 37, a veteran nudist, is one of a dying breed in Germany. Those who practice Free Body Culture (known as FKK) are being pushed to the fringes of the country's beaches where once - at least in the former communist east - they used to dominate them.

Across the shores of the Baltic Sea in north-eastern Germany beach wardens - or "trouser police" as they are often called - have been dispatched to patrol the white sands in an effort to reinforce the strict new demarcations between the FKK-designated beaches and what are called "textile" stretches.

"It didn't used to be like this," said Bernhard Gulard, 61, a beach warden who is responsible for four miles of sand in Warnemünde, 95 miles north-west of Berlin, as he reprimanded incorrectly attired bathers with a blast of his orange whistle.

He said: "We nudists were in the majority, but then the west German holidaymakers started coming here, and were somewhat shocked by our openness about nudity so we had to act rather than lose their custom. Now my job is to turn nudists off the textile beaches, but I will also order people on the nude beaches to get undressed or leave."

[marzipanni]

1. I got busted once in the 70s when my friend and I were nude

sunbathing/swimming. I swam out into the pond up in the hills at a county park and the ranger came down to the beach and told me to get out of the water as he began writing on his pad. As I stood naked before him in his uniform, I felt a little less embarrassed when he stated the reason for the ticket: "your dog is off leash and might chase deer..."