Where have all the nudists gone?

Friends of mine in Germany have introduced me to a new magazine, Tichy's Einblick, published by its editor-in-chief Roland Tichy, and featuring provocative in-depth studies of the German political and cultural landscape, as well as Germany's interface with American, 
European, and Russian issues.

Tichy's Einblick also includes a short bio on each of its contributing authors. It describes Uwe Tellkamp as a "freier Autor" and Bernd Fischer as a "freier Publizist." In fact, most of Tichy's writers have no obligation or attachment to a political party, a university, or even a private think-tank, unless it's their own think-tank. This fact says a lot about Tichy's independent stance.

The title of this article "Where are all the nudists?" refers to the nudist bathers at the Englischer Garten, located in Munich. If my American-tourist reader flies into Munich's grand, modern airport and takes the Schnellbahn Nr. 8 to the overcrowded Marienplatz, he can cast his eyes to the top of the Rathaus, or city hall, and watch the famed  "Glockenspiel" figures do their thing, rotating across the clock-face. But along the way to the Marienplatz, a visitor can step off the Nr. 8 train at the "<Rosenheimerplatz" station, cross the

Rosenheimerstraße, and visit the "Englischer Garten," Munich's wonderful, expansive park, landscaped in the "English" style, from its southern boundary to its northern limit. It runs for four and a half miles along the banks of the Isar River. You can stroll along the river-bank for an hour, or climb the forested slope for a loftier view. The Park gets a lot of visitors, but you can use it at a  solitary, refreshing pace.

But the New Age has caught up with Munich and the Englischer Garten, as it has most of Western Europe, with various groups constantly pushing the envelope over what normal people should or shouldn't do. Munich's first homosexual mayor Dominick Krause, for example, stood on an open stage, after his election, and shared a "French" kiss with his lover. They should have  appeared on stage in costume for more contemporary flair, something carnival-like and theatrical.

Nude swimmers and sun-bathers frequent the Park, which has also drawn pot-smokers by the score, and presumably the dealers that supply them. You put together nudity and pot-smoking, and you can imagine the rest: s-e-x--  all one hundred varieties of it. Add to that all the gawping tourist who come to watch these shenanigans, and you can imagine who crowded the Englischer Garten gets during the warm months.

The Park also plays host to more conventional activities, like pizza-parties, drinking-parties, and dance-parties with a boom-box. The noisy crowds of revelers displease many Park visitors, but the city-government only requires  that the revelers clean up behind themselves.

Finally, Park observers have noticed a recent abatement in the number of nude-bathers and pot-smokers on the river-banks. They speculate that these activities offend Muslim immigrants who also like to tour the Park. Isn't it curious that the revelers don't mind if they offend native Western citizens' religious and cultural traditions. But they'd rather submit to the foreign cultures, suggesting that their submission does not require their subordination as much as the native culture does.

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