German Gymnastics, Modern German Dance, and Nazi Aesthetics

Abstract

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Napoleon's French empire conquered much of Europe, the German patriot Friedrich Ludwig Jahn invented the first German national gymnastics program known asTurnen. The idea was to create a new German body and a new form of national discipline. Walking for bodily fitness, to instill national awareness, training on special equipment and rediscovering ancient German dance forms all became part of the new body culture. It is out of this movement with its nationalist and later racist culture that much of the modern gymnastics and dance movements in Germany gained their ideologies. This article sketches some stages of this social and physical continuity, from the resistance to the French to the establishment of the racial state in 1933 and to the provision of a Nazi aesthetic by German modern dancers.