Beate Uhse-Rotermund

Beate Dorothea Köstlin was born in Wargenau, a neighbourhood of Cranz, East Prussia (now Zelenogradsk, Russia). She was the youngest of three children of doctor Margarete Köstlin-Räntsch, (one of the first five female doctors in Germany) and farmer Otto Köstlin.

When she was eight years old, her older brother told her the myth of Icarus. Beate was fascinated by the story, and by the idea of flying—so much so that she gathered chicken feathers and glued together some wings and jumped from her parents' veranda. Beate was a wild child. Her parents did not try to control her; instead they encouraged their daughter in her interests and desires. They ensured she got a good education at progressive boarding schools, first "Schule am Meer" then "Odenwaldschule" where she graduated. Her parents informed their children about sexual matters early, and spoke with them openly about sexuality and contraception. At 15, Beate became the Hessian javelin champion.

In the early postwar period, former members of the Luftwaffe were not permitted to fly, ending Uhse's aviation career. Initially, she made a living on the black market. She sold products door-to-door and met many housewives and learned of their problems: former soldiers returning from the war were making their wives pregnant, not caring that there was "no apartment, no income and no future" for any children. Many of the women resorted to visiting untrained abortionists to deal with unwanted pregnancies. Uhse remembered lectures her doctor mother had given her on sexuality, sexual hygiene and contraception. She searched for information on the Knaus-Ogino rhythm method of contraception, and put together a brochure which explained to the women how to identify their fertile and infertile days.

By 1947, she had sold 32,000 copies of "Schrift X" (Pamphlet X) via her "Betu" mail order company, and began to expand to larger cities such as Hamburg and Bremen. Many people wrote her letters asking for advice on sexuality and eroticism. "These people were unaware of the facts of life," she wrote in her autobiography. Soon she was also selling condoms and "marriage guides".

In 1951, with four employees, she started the Beate Uhse Mail Order Co., offering condoms and books on "marital hygiene". Two years later, the company had 14 employees. Uhse married retailer Ernst-Walter Rotermund and had a second child, Ulrich, and gained two stepchildren, Dirk and Bärbel. The three sons later worked in the business.

In 1962, in Flensburg, she opened her "speciality store for marital hygiene" largely focused on sexuality, thus considered as the first sex shop. Her lawyers had advised opening around Christmas to reduce to likliehood of attacks from outraged members of the public during the festive season. She offered, both in her store and her catalogue, more "articles for marital hygiene". Soon the police began acting against the items in her store which supposedly served to "inflame and satisfy lustful desires in a manner contrary to decency and morality". By 1992, her store had been indicted more than 2,000 times. She was also discriminated against by other organisations, including the "Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels" (a financial organisation of the German book industry), which refused to admit her publishing house due to "moral concerns". The Flensburger tennis club refused to admit her due to "general concerns".

In 1979, she divorced her second husband. In 1983, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer, but survived. At age 75 she earned a diving licence. In 1996, she fulfilled a long-held dream, and opened the Beate Uhse Erotic Museum in Berlin. Three years later, in 1999, her company, Beate Uhse AG, was listed on the German stock exchange and was met with great interest in the financial community. The stock was oversubscribed 64 times in its IPO. The original stock certificates are sought after because of the depiction of scantily dressed women.

The Beate Uhse business continues to trade throughout Europe under the names Beate Uhse, Pabo and et Eve. Beate-Uhse.TV, a private television station in Germany launched in March 2001.

In 2001, Uhse died of pneumonia in a clinic in St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Uhse was one of the most important people for sexual liberation in the German-speaking world. In 1989 she received the Federal Cross of Merit (German: Bundesverdienstkreuz).

Despite the fact that she contributed to bettering female sex lives, Beate Uhse remains a controversial figure for radical feminists, for her refusal to hire female collaborators an "objectification of the female" body to sell her products.