No nudes is bad news for Munich's famous English Garden, reports Erik Kirschbaum

The naked sunbathers who once filled Munich's central park on warm summer days are turning their backs on Germany's famous open-air celebration to nudity.

Officials, worried the newfound prudery will damage the international reputation of the English Garden (created in the 19th century as a copy of a London park) and cause a drop in tourism to the Bavarian city, have appealed to local sun-lovers to come back and leave their clothes behind.

"We've lost many of the nudists who made the English Garden a special place," says park director Thomas Köster, "especially good-looking young women and men who made it such an attraction and aren't here as much any more."

Nude sunbathing has long been wide- spread in Germany, but nowhere have the nudists been more prevalent than in Munich's English Garden. During the hot summer days of the 1970s and 1980s, 14,000 nudists visited the leafy 360-hectare park each day. Today the number has dropped to perhaps at most a thousand.

"Before you would see whole families wandering around naked or young nude people sitting in the beer gardens here," Köster says.

"Society has become more prudish. You don't see as many attractive young Munich girls any more. I hope they'll come back."

Drawn by tour guides in countries where public nudity is non-existent, visitors from Japan, the US and the rest of Europe flock to the park to ogle the bare German flesh. A number of hotels even advertise their rooms with clear views of the nude sections.

On a warm summer afternoon, about 30 people wearing just smiles and seamless tans were spread out on a grassy knoll next to a small river. They seemed oblivious to the hundreds of people wearing clothing who walked past - most of whom were unable to contain curious glances.

"It feels good to come here and relax with my clothes off," says Ilona Scholl, a 32-year-old post office worker who has come to the park for 15 years. Wearing nothing but a necklace, she can understand why fewer naturists come to the park to seek the sun. "What really bothers me is the stares from men from countries where there isn't this sort of nudity," she says. "They come here just to gawk. It's really unpleas- ant. It makes you feel like you're in a zoo."

Gerhard Meyerhof, a 59-year-old retired engineer, says he can't understand why there are fewer nudes. "It's a tremendous experience to feel the air and the wind all over your body," he says, oblivious to a group of giggling middle-aged German women taking pictures of his naked backside from behind nearby bushes. "The ancient Greeks ran around naked," he adds. "The tourists don't bother me at all."

Köster says it is difficult to pinpoint any single reason why fewer nudists were coming to English Garden. A conservative era and accompanying prudery perhaps. His own theory is that young people these days prefer to spend their time at posh cafés in the nearby Schwabing district. - (Reuters)