Germany’s pioneering sex shop chain Beate Uhse said Friday that it has filed for insolvency, falling victim to the rise of erotic e-commerce and internet porn piracy.
“The Management Board of Beate Uhse AG has decided to take this step because in the advanced negotiations with a group of investors on a financing transaction recently, no agreement could be reached,” board member Michael Specht said in a statement.
Founded by one of Hitler’s flyboys
Beate Uhse, named for its founder — former World War II fighter pilot Beate Uhse-Rotermund, sold lingerie, sex products and erotic films in stores across Europe.
The shops were seen as leading a post-war change of attitude to sex and erotic pleasure.
Uhse, who died in 2001 at the age of 81, opened her first shop called Institute of Marital Hygiene in the German town of Flensburg.
That store selling lingerie and contraceptives became the world’s first sex shop, according to the company’s website.
In 1999, it became the first sex goods company to list on the Frankfurt stock exchange.
A sign of the company’s desperation and delusion came in 2014, when Beate Uhse AG attempted to expand its market by distributing a line of halal sex products to appeal to Muslim immigrants who have, well, invaded Europe.
One Response