Recordings from year 2: Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit

In 2024 and early 2025 we worked our way through a silent film from 1925: Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit created at the famous Ufa studios in Berlin. This documentary gives a cross-section of German physical culture in the mid-twenties – from outdoor living, to dance, to sport to that fascinating and slippery topic: gymnastics, and so much more.

We took our time combing through this film in five-minute increments, looking at the fascinating, sometimes bizarre, sometimes heroic and sometimes frightening characters behind the important developments in physical culture at that time. We looked back through the century before the film was made, and to the century ahead. As it turns out, the practices, and the stories that infuse them, are still very much with us today.

Below is a list of the main topics and names which were covered. To access the videos, you have to join the group!

MARCH 26, 2024

Introduction to the film and UFA studios, neurasthenia, nakedness, and the obsession with ancient Greece.

APRIL 30

Gymnastik (what is it), baby gymnastics, scoliosis, Pehr Henrik Ling, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Hellerau and breathing.

MAY 28

More Gymnastik (gymnastics, expression), Delsarte, Steele McKaye, Genevieve Stebbins, Hedwig Kallmeyer, Rudolf Bode, Rudolf von Laban, Niddy Impekoven

JUNE 25

The Loheland women's colony, Anna Hermann, Bess Mensendieck, Hedwig Hagemann

OCTOBER 1, OCTOBER 22

Mary Wigman, Ascona, more Laban, the 1936 Olympics, Anita Berber, Valeska Gert

NOVEMBER 26

Army and Sports, GESOLEI, boxing, tennis, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and Turnen, Bebelplatz (book burning), Hassenheide.

DECEMBER 17

Discussion: what are we talking about here and why? Wellness and the far right.

JANUARY 28, 2025

Fresh air, sun, water, Lebensreform, nudism, Eugen Sandow, J.P. Müller, body-building.

FEBRUARY 25

Fresh air, outdoor schools, spas, Magnus Hirschfeld, Hans Bluher and Adolf Brand, Wandervogel.