Beate Uhse-Rotermund

The Beate Uhse business continues to trade throughout Europe under the names Beate Uhse, Pabo and et Eve. It went into administration on multiple occasions, most recently in July 2019, owing money to Google for its Pay Per Click advertising.

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).

In 1979, she divorced her second husband. In 1983, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer, but survived. At age 75 she obtained 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 greatly desired because of the depiction of two scantily dressed women.

In 1962, in Flensburg, she opened her "speciality store for marital hygiene" largely focused on sexuality, thus considered as the first sex shop. She offered, both in her store and her catalog, 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 organizations, including the "Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels" (a financial organization 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 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.

By 1947, she had sold 32,000 copies of "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 1945, her husband Hans-Jürgen died in an air crash, leaving Beate a 24-year-old widow with a year-old son.

In April 1945, Berlin was surrounded by Soviet forces. The commander of Uhse's squadron wanted to move the battalion west. Uhse made her way through the ravaged city to her house in Rangsdorf and picked up her son and his nanny, but when she brought them to the airport, her unit had already left, along with her airplane. She found a small Siebel Fh 104 plane that did not have a pilot, and while it was being fueled she studied the plane's manual, as she had never flown this type. With her son and the nanny, together with four other passengers, two of whom were injured, she left embattled Berlin flying northwest, finally landing in Leck in North Friesland. There she was captured by British forces.

In October 1944, she was promoted to the rank of captain and was assigned to Ferry Squadron 1 (German: Überführungsgeschwader 1) based in Berlin-Staaken.

In 1943, her son Klaus was born. After the birth, she was permitted to continue flying because she was in a role considered vital to the war effort, and she received permission to hire a nanny.

Beate fell in love with her stunt-piloting instructor, Hans-Jürgen Uhse, but repeatedly rejected his proposals of marriage. She swore she would "never ever give up flying for a man." Since Hans-Jürgen strongly supported her ambitions, however, she finally accepted, but her father resisted. For one whole year, her father refused to bless their union. Finally, a festive wedding was scheduled for 10 October 1939. However, it had to be canceled because of the beginning of the Second World War. On 28 September, Hans-Jürgen Uhse was to be posted; the couple married quietly four hours before his departure.

Finally her parents gave in to her demands, and in 1937 she joined the Rangsdorf pilot school near Berlin. In October of that year, on her 18th birthday, she received her pilot's license. In 1938, she passed the stunt pilot exam, and shortly thereafter competed in a race in Belgium. She won in her category, and also won 2nd place overall in target landing and 3rd in "punctual flight."

Beate Uhse-Rotermund (German pronunciation: [beˈaːtə ˈʔuːzə ˈʁoːtɐmʊnt] (listen); born Beate Köstlin [ˈkœstliːn], 25 October 1919 – 16 July 2001) was a German pilot, entrepreneur and sex pioneer. She was one of the very few female stunt pilots in Germany in the 1930s. During World War II she ferried planes for the German Luftwaffe and after World War II she started the first sex shop in the world. The company she started, Beate Uhse AG, is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.