- “He was traveling, he told his companions, with his young daughter Francine; but the sailors had never seen her, and, thinking this strange, they decided to seek her out one day, in the midst of a terrible storm. Everything was out of place; they could find neither the philosopher nor the girl. Overcome with curiosity, they crept into Descartes’s quarters. There was no one there, but on leaving the room, they stopped in front of a mysterious box. As soon as they had opened it, they jumped back in horror: inside the box was a doll-a living doll, they thought, which moved and behaved exactly like a human being. Descartes, it transpired, had constructed the android himself, out of pieces of metal and clockwork. It was indeed his progeny, but not the kind the sailors had imagined: Francine was a machine. When the ship’s captain was shown the moving marvel, he was convinced, in his shock, that it was some instrument of dark magic, responsible for the weather that had hampered their journey. On the captain’s orders, Descartes’s “daughter” was thrown overboard.“
The history of the museum starts with the (social) hygiene movement of the end of the 19th Century. The inhabitants of big cities lived in fear of epidemics due to urban pollution and contaminated wastewater. Dresden developed an awareness of a healthy life in the city and became a center of the "life reform" movement. Here the first hygiene exhibitions were organized, their supporters from the beginning, the Dresden factory owner Karl August Lingner a mouthwash manufacturer. He combined his business interests with the goal of "hygienic teaching" and used science exhibitions as his new medium. For the climax, the First International Hygiene Exhibition of 1911, resulted in the desire for a permanent museum. The success of the exhibition with five and a half million visitors left a substantial net profit, which should have been used for the museum. But Lingner died in 1916, and the original capital was destroyed by hyperinflation after World War II. Thus the museum was not actually built until 1930.
The architect of this new building was Wilhelm Kreis (1873-1954), a proponent of undecorated forms of modern architecture with a total monumental expression. Prior to this assignment he was already chief architect of the Düsseldorf exhibition "Ge-So-Lei" was in 1926 (Health - Physical Education - Social Welfare). As an academic institution and manufacturing company, the National Socialist regime from 1933 supplied the German Hygiene Museum with racist research and teaching aids for the products visualized. The combination of museum work and policy implementation also influenced various offices for health and racial policies to be housed at the museum. Certainly, the year 1933 in the hygiene discourse, and especially for the propagandistic function of the museum was a turning point: well-organized state persecution, and ultimately the murder of Jews, Gypsies, the handicapped and other groups that are defined as "pests" in the "body politic" were begun. But it is precisely the history of hygiene and eugenics which also shows that the underlying thinking was not a Nazi invention, but rather - not only in Germany - in the "degeneration of fear" since the turn of the century and rooted especially since World War II. The Hygiene Museum was the disastrous alliance of purity and destructive mania, the health-eye [the symbol of the museum since 1911] and SS Death's Head.
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These models were a German innovation, originating in the early 1930s at the Museum of Hygiene in Dresden. They served as a teaching aid for students of anatomy, and promoted a message of health and sanitation to the general public. The models were based on 'perfect forms', of young men and women, and symbolised the healthy body that people should strive to achieve. Germany was undergoing rapid industrialisation; thus prompted rapid urban growth accompanied by inadequate sanitation. The German Government promoted the use of these models as a way of educating and preserving a healthy working class. In the early 1950s the Health Museum in Cologne, West Germany, was established and began producing the transparent models and exporting them to America and other countries.
In the late 1930s some thought that the transparent models were symbols of Nazi ideal racial ideology, most who saw them were transfixed by the eugenic ideal of a healthy body. The Powerhouse Museum's Transparent Woman arrived in 1954 to advocate a message of individual responsibility to maintain a healthy body.
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collect ... irn=244414
The world’s first sexdoll – or ”gynoid” – was built in 1941 by a team of craftsmen from Germanys Hygiene Museum Dresden. The project was supervised by the famous preparator and technician Franz Tschakert. The ”Father of the woman of glass”, which happened to be the sensation in 1930’s II. International Hygiene-Exhibit, used his skills and experience in order to create a kind of doll the world had never seen before.
The ”field-hygienic project” was an initiative of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, who regarded the doll as an ” counterbalance” (or regulating effect )for the sexual drive of his stormtropers. In one his letters, dated 20.11.1940 he mentions the ”unnessessary losses”, the Wehrmacht had suffered in France inflicted by street prostitutes.
”The greatest danger in Paris are the wide-spread and uncontrolled whores, picking by clients in bars, dancehalls and other places . It is our duty to prevent soldiers from risking their health, just for the sake of a quick adventure.”
The project – called Burghild in the first place – was considered ”Geheime Reichssache” , which was ”more secret than top secret” at the time. Himmler put his commander-in-chief SS-Dr. Joachim Mrurgowsky in charge, the highest ranking officer of Berlins notorious SS-institute.
All members of the team – also Tschakert – ware bound to keep the secret.
In July 1941, when Hitler’s army attacked russia, an unknown but ambitious danish SS-Doctor Named Olen Hannussen took over from Mrurgowsky. Perhaps he was the one who changed Burghild to Borghild, which is nothing more than the danish equivalent.
Hannussen pushed everybody forward to make the project a success. The ”galvonoplastical dolls” – manufactured in a bronzemold – were meant to follow the Stormtroopers in ” desinfections-trailers” into the enemy`s land, in order to stop them visiting ”infection herds” - linke front-brothels and ”loose women”. At least, this was Himmler ‘s plan. A psychiatrist Dr. Rudolf Chargeheimer , befriended with Hannussen and also involved in the project, wrote him a letter to clearify the difficulties.
”Sure thing, purpose and goal of the dolls is to relieve our soldiers. They have to fight and not be on the browl or mingle with ”foreign womenfolk”. However: no real men will prefer a doll to a real woman, until our technicians meet the following quality standards-1. The synthetic flesh has to feel the same like real flesh
2. The doll’ s body should be as agile and moveable as the real body
3. The doll’s organ should feel absolutely realistic.”
Between June 1940 – 1941 IG Farben had already developed a number of ”skin-friendly polymers” for the SS. Special characteristics : high tensile strength and elasticity. The cast of a suitable model proved to be more difficult.
Borghild was meant to reflect the beauty-ideal of the Nazis , i. e. white skin, fair hair and blue eyes. Although the team considered a doll with brown hair , the SS- Hygiene-Institute insisted on manufacturing a ”nordish doll”. Tschakert hoped to plastercast from a living model and a number of famous female athletes were invited to come to his studios, among them Wilhelmina von Bremen and Annette Walter. In the process Tschakert realized it was the wrong way. In a letter to Mrurgowsky he came to the conclusion: ”Sometimes the legs are too short and look deformed, or the lady has a hollow back and arms like a wrestler. The overall appearance is always dreadful and I fear there is no other way than to combine.” While Mrurgowsky still favoured a ”whole imprint” of NS- diva Kristina Söderbaum, the Borghild-designer decided to build the doll’s mold in a ”modular way”. In Tschakerts view the doll should be nothing more than a” female bestform”, a ”perfect automaton of lust”, that would combine ”the best of all possible bodies”. The team agreed on a cheeky and naughty face , a look-a-like of Käthe von Nagy, but the actress politely declined to borrow her face to Tschakert’s doll. After Mrurgowsky’ s exit , Dr. Hannussen rejected the idea to cast a face from a living person. He believed in an ”artifial face of lust”, which would be more attractive to soldiers.
In his logbook he wrote:
”The doll has only one purpose and she should never become a substitute for the honourable mother at home... When the soldier makes love to Borghild, it has nothing to do with love. Therefore the face of our anthropomorphic sexmachine should be exactly how Weininger described the common wanton’s face.”
Today Arthur Rink, born 1919, a master of art and student of Hitler’s favourite sculptor Arno Breker, is the only living eye-witness of the most discreet kept project of the III. Reich.
After a short practical training at ”Puppenwerk Käthe Kruse” he worked since 1937 in Tschakerts studio at the German Hygiene-Museum in Dresden. He joined the Borghild-team as early as 1940: There was on sculptor (rink), a varnisher, a specialist for synthetic materials (Tschakert), a hair-dresser , a lathe operator and - in the beginning- a mechanic from ”Würtemberg’s Metallfabrik” in Friedrichshafen. The first construction-document showed that Tschakert had planned to use” a simple aluminium-skelleton”. But soon he changed his mind and decided to use Elastolin. The synthetic flesh was another problem. Rink: ” The material was not easy to find. Mr. Tschakert, an expert on plastics, had tried several materials based on rubber or butyl-rubber: All came from IG Farben or from the Rheinischen Gummi- und Celluloid Fabrik. One material was called Ipolex, it was extremly tearproof, but it developed yellow spots when cleaned with certain detergents.” At this stage Rink gave the doll‘ s torso the finishing touch, working with plaster and a mixture of ”Schwarzmehl (?) and glue” Under Hannussens strict directions ”ten wanton-faces” (Rink) were modelled, and used by Dr. Chargeheimer in psychological tests. Chargeheimer and Hannussen were convinced, Borghild’s success would depend in a major way on her ”facial expression”. Contrary to common believe , that men get only aroused through female sexual characteristics they thought it all would ”depend on the right face”. Rinks plasters were used to produce some model-heads in a showroom-factory in Königsberg. Varnished and hair-dressed they looked a bit like wigholders.
Purpose of this costly exercise was to find out what type of woman the soldiers would really fancy. Or like Chargeheimer wrote to Hannussen – ”the idea of beauty harboured by the SS might not be shared by the majority of our soldiers.” He even considered ”the vulgar could appeal to most ordinary men”. The results of Dr. Chargeheimers tests at the barracks of Soldatenheim St. Helier are not known. Fact is, that at this time, Rink and Tschakert had already finished a complete model of the doll. Arthur Rink made a solemn declaration about what happened next.
”Three types of dolls were planned : Typ A :168, Typ B : 176, Typ C : 182 cm.
Typ B would be the first to go into serial production. The members of the project were divided about Borghild’s breasts. The SS favoured them round and full, Dr. Hannussen insisted on “a rose hip form, that would grip well” and he won the dispute. The first model of Borghild was finsihed in september 1941. She was exactely the “nordish type”.
The idea of our hairdresser to give the doll a “Schneckenfrisur”(earphones of hair) was rejected by Hannussen. He wanted her to have “a boyish hair-do” to underline that Borghild was “part of the fighting forces”– a field-whore and not an honourable Mother.
Borghild’s presentation in Berlin was a great success. Himmler was there and Dr. Chargeheimer. While the gentlemen examined her artificial orfices , Franz Tschakert was very nervous, but Himmler was so enthusiast that he ordered 50 Borghilds on the spot. It was considered to move to a special production facility , because Tschakert’s studio was too small to cope with the production of 50 dolls. In the face of more and more unpleasant developments in the east Himmler dropped his plans one week later and cut instead our budget.
In the beginning of 1942, some weeks after Stalingrad, the whole project was put on hold. All construction-documents had to be returned to the SS-Hygiene-Institute. The bronze-mold for Type B was never finished. I have no clue of whereabouts of the doll, but I presume, that she - like all my plasters and studies - was send to Berlin. If she was kept in Tschakerts studio in Dresden, it is most likely that she was destroyed in Februray 1945, when allied bombers destroyed the city.”
Fact is: the bombs devastated the Hygiene-Museum . Two models of the woman of glass – Taschkert masterpiece were destroyed.
http://www.borghild.de/indexe.htm
The first transparent women, a companion to the Transparent Man, was made by craftsmen in the German Hygiene Museum in 1930, and first appeared in the US in 1936, at the New York Museum of Science. According to a 1936 account in Time Magazine, the life-sized glassy woman was equipped with 20 pairs of lamps to selectively illuminate organs sculpted in a material called "cellhorn." A young Dresden woman, killed in an accident, was the source of the skeleton, which was treated with preservative and covered with paraffin. The figure's arms were raised and face upturned, as if basking in the sun, part of the German "Cult of Light and Air."
Thirty years later, a new generation of transparent women were created as public health education tools; some toured in mobile exhibits until finally settling down as the centerpieces of health museums. Transparent men, on the other hand, are hard to find (the Mayo Clinic Museum displayed one before it closed down, an original, sun-worshipping German model). This is probably because pregnancy makes for a more interesting story, and American educators, as always, are reluctant to expose kids to transparent glowing male genitalia.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/29213
The German chemical industry had already proved its ability to produce high quality skin-like polymers, so the labs set about working on the doll’s appearance. Himmler wanted to create a model of Aryan beauty, and to this end various real-life models were taken into consideration: athletes like Wilhelmina von Bremen, or actresses like Kristina Söderbaum. But the developers soon began to realize that there was no such thing as an “ideal” woman, and that the best thing to do would be to create the doll in a modular fashion, using the best part of each female model. The face was also a significant problem. The Danish doctor Olen Hannusen, Himmler’s right hand man on the project, observed that sex was the doll’s only purpose, and that it should in no way become “a substitute for the honourable mother at home”; its face should be an “artificial face of lust”, reproducing a “common wanton's face”. Chargeheimer also agreed that “the idea of beauty harboured by the SS might not be shared by the majority of our soldiers”, and that “the vulgar could appeal to most ordinary men”.
The creation of the face was entrusted to a sculptor, Arthur Rink. Pupil of the famed Arno Breker (1900 – 1991), Hitler’s favourite sculptor, Rink – who had worked at the Hygiene Museum since 1937 – created 10 models for the doll’s face, which were then assessed in psychological tests. Three models of different appearances and sizes were then implemented. According to Rink, called on as the only living witness to the Borghild Project, the first to enter production was model B: 176 cm tall, corresponding to the “Nordic Type”, with small, easy to grasp breasts, and a blonde bob. The presentation of the prototype in Berlin was a success, and Himmler immediately ordered 50 dolls. But the war was taking a turn for the worse, and at the beginning of 1942 the project was interrupted. All the material records of the project appear to have been lost in February 1945, during the bombing of Dresden, which did not spare the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum.
http://www.reakt.org/ssxxx/
The "gynoids" were made from silicone and small enough to fit in a backpack. Originally the developers asked Hungarian actress, Kathe von Nagy, to be the model for the doll, but she declined. Instead, the blonde haired and blue eyed dolls were given bland features so soldiers could impose their own fantasies.
Himmler was so taken by the prototypes that he ordered 50 for his own troops. However, the widespread availability of penicillin in the early 1940s, as well as the embarrassment many soldiers feared if captured with the dolls, led Nazis to halt production of this sex doll super-race. The evidence of these adult dolls was subsequently incinerated during the bombing of Dresden by the allied forces.