Basic gear from the former German Democratic Republic: East German fins

[David Wilson]

As promised, here is a new thread in a series focusing on underwater swimming equipment manufactured in certain East European countries during the second half of the twentieth century.

A short history lesson. We are beginning with the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which started life after World War II as the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany, while the Federal Republic of Germany (IFRG) arose from the territory of the American, British and French Occupation Zones of Germany. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ended the GDR and its territory was soon absorbed into the FRG to create a united Germany. In its time, the GDR was known within the western world as "East Germany" and its capital city East Berlin usually only appeared in western newspapers whenever GDR border guards fired on East Germans attempting to escape to West Berlin. Since then, press articles have tended to focus on matters such as the files kept by the East German Stasi security police whenever the subject of the former GDR arises.

This vision of the former GDR was one of the reasons why I visited the country during the 1970s to make up my own mind about the land and its people. Another reason was that I felt obliged, as a schoolteacher of German, to familiarise myself with what was the least known and understood German-speaking country of Europe. What I saw and experienced there confirmed some aspects of western press coverage, but opened my eyes to the fact that the country had a functioning economy, including retail outlets, restaurants, hotels and the people were friendly and curious about my visit, although officialdom was somewhat brusque. If nothing else, I valued staying in the hotel where the post-war Potsdam Agreement was signed and in the Weimar hotel where Germany's Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, used to accommodate his lady friends. I left East Germany with a critical but more rounded view of the country.

I recall reading somewhere decades ago that the sale of underwater swimmining equipment in general, and breathing equipment in particular, was restricted in the GDR due to its potential use for escape to the west. I can't confirm whether this is so, but during my stay I managed to locate the GDR's diving magazine Poseidon, which contained plenty of articles and photographs about recreational subaquatic activity by young and old alike. Within the pages of this issue, the pictures showed divers wearing the fins, masks and snorkels I will showcase here and in related threads.

Right, enough talk and on to the fins. I am indebted here to online diving gear museums, which have East German fins among their inventory. First up is a fin home-made by a Dr Rauschert in 1950 but never commercially manufactured:

Dr Rauschert fin

Next up is the so-called Kessner fin:

Kessner fin

According to easydive24.de | Exponate des Sporttauchermuseums: Flossen, this fin was designed by Helmut Kessner at the outset of the 1950s and went into industrial production at the Deutsche Gummiwarenfabrik (known as DeGuFa) rubber goods factory in 1953 as the first in the series of fins manufactured in the GDR.

I'll leave it there for today. In my next contribution I will showcase the fins accompanying the GDR MEDI diving outfit of the 1950s.

 

[Sam Miller III]

David
Enjoying your many contributions to this board,

It is noted that the fins appear to be close cousins to the American Churchill fins deigned by Owen Potter Churchill in 1930s/1940s and used by the allies during WW 11.

Or are they copies of the great Hans Hass fins also used in WW 11 by the Germans ?
There is a great book on German "Frogmen" in WW11 by Michael Jung, Sabotage Underwasser (ISBN 3-8312-0818-4) HC well illustrated with photographs of German fins
Might be of interest to you ???

Keep up the good work --it is appreciated

Sam Miller,111

 

[David Wilson]

Thanks for the appreciation and the book recommendation, Sam. As for the matter of fin design in post World War II Europe, there is certainly a direct link between Owen Churchill's "swim fins" and the "Admiralty pattern" fins manufactured by Dunlop for British frogmen during that war. As you are aware, there was a second player in the development of fins, namely Frenchman Louis de Corlieu, who preceded Churchill and was known by him. I've read somewhere that Italian combat swimmers used crude versions of de Corlieu fins during the 1940s and one of my online gleanings was a fin design by the Italian footwear company Superga from that era:

You mention the Hans Hass model made by Semperit of Austria and the German online museum of underwater gear I mentioned in my first posting has a picture:

Here's an image of a West German fin dubbed "Original" and made by Barakuda from the early 1950s:

I think the East German Kessler fins have a close resemblance to these Barakuda Originals, which may indeed have been originally modelled on the Churchills or its British copies made by Dunlop and being sold as war surplus at the time. Another possible influence is the early Soviet Mosrezina No. 1 fin, which also resembles the Churchill:

 

[David Wilson]

On to the fins accompanying the GDR MEDI diving outfit of the 1950s. Here is some publicity material from 1954 for the "Medi-Nixe" rebreather outfit, courtesy of the Oxydiver (Eigenbau Rebreather und tauchen) website:

The diving kit illustrated guaranteed the user "eine Stunde unter Wasser" (one hour under water). It came complete with a 14-page manual of instructions:

LIBRARY Medi

"Medi" is short for "Medizintechnik" (Medical technology), the name of the manufacturing company, which was based in the East Germany city of Leipzig. There are plenty of websites, some with English translation facilities, dedicated to East German diving equipment manufacturing history in general and Medi in particular, notably Start.

The Medi-Nixe kit came complete with fins, as shown on the feet of this museum mannequin, which is also wearing an East German "Pinguin" (Penguin) drysuit:

Medi-Nixe, KSK Umbau im Marinemuseum Dänholm:

In the image below, note the Medi logo (above) on the top of the fin and the way these adjustable open-heel fins have an assymetrical shape, like the Soviet Mosrezina No. 1 in the previous posting. They were apparently worn with the longer edge on the outside.

easydive24.de | Exponate des Sporttauchermuseums: Flossen

Here is a light green version of the Nixe fin:

Medi-Nixe, Baureihe 1954:
In my next posting I'll turn to the "Hydro-Slip" fins made between 1955 and 1950 by Volkseigener Betrieb (VEB) Degufa (Deutsche Gummiwaren-Fabrik) of Berlín.

 

[abnfrog]

hate to be picky on such a great thread but its not GDR its DDR as I was there jumping out of airplanes the month prior to the wall coming down ....great stuff though !!!!!

 

[David Wilson]

hate to be picky on such a great thread but its not GDR its DDR as I was there jumping out of airplanes the month prior to the wall coming down ....great stuff though !!!!!

Thank you for complimenting the thread. Congratulations too on being one of the people who can proudly proclaim "Ich war dabei" (I was there) when the Berlin Wall was breached. I only got to watch it on TV!

As for GDR/DDR, it really comes down to a question of language:
GDR = German Democratic Republic
DDR = Deutsche Demokratische Republik

During the 1970s I wrote a 400-page Masters thesis for my local university about the teaching of English and French in East German schools and I had to research many of the country's schoolbooks. In its English textbooks, the country was called either by its full name "German Democratic Republic", or by its abbreviation "GDR" as a straight English translation of the German equivalent "DDR". Throughout my dissertation, I used "GDR" as the noun and "East German" as the adjective and neither my university tutor nor my external examiner raised any objection.

You flag up the important point, though, that the naming of things is inevitably accompanied by a high degree of ideology and partisanship. This is particularly so when anybody in the geopolitically Western Hemisphere refers to a country that only existed as an entity when it was a satellite of the Soviet Union behind the so-called "Iron Curtain". We still have examples of the phenomenon nowadays, e.g. the question whether we call the country whose capital is Pyongyang "North Korea" or the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", or indeed "조선민주주의인민공화국" for that matter!

 

[David Wilson]

On to "Hydro-Slip" fins. Here I am greatly indebted to the text and the images on the web page at VSC - sbírka potápěčské techniky, which is located on the Czech-language Vintage Scuba Collection site at VSC - sbírka potápěčské techniky. According to this web page, DeGuFa manufactured their Hydro-slip fins between 1955 and 1960.

Hydro-Slip fins

As you can see from the images, Hydro-Slips were what Soviet fin designers would have called "semi-open" fins, that is to say, fins not only with heel straps but also with extended footplates to protect the base of the heel. In this case, the straps are adjustable and secured with buckles on both sides of each fin. The blades are reinforced by the side members and the two radiating centre ribs.

The close-up of the logo in the final image identifies the manufacturer as DEGUFA, which stands for (DEutsche GUmmiwaren-FAbrik), meaning "German Rubber Goods Factory". The factory in question was within the territory of the former Soviet sector of Berlin, which served as the East German capital city (German: "Hauptstadt der DDR"). "VEB" expands to "Volkeigener Betrieb", meaning literally "people-owned business" and identifying DeGuFA as a nationalised company.

According to the Czech web page, these fins were also available in a green colour. Diving writer Norbert Gierschner is quoted as saying in an article that he purchased a pair of Hydro-Slips in 1960 and used them as his first set of fins for diving. Gierschner, who was born in the Köpenick district of Berlin, now has his own German diving book publishing company (see: Norbert Gierschner).

A black version also existed, as this eBay picture shows:

I'll move on next to the later, upgraded version of the Hydro-Slip fin, dubbed the Hydro-Slip Super.

 

[David Wilson]

Let's move on to the Hydro-Slip Super fin, which first appeared in East German sporting goods stores during August 1960. Here is an advertisement announcing the the launch of the fins:

The caption under the image of the fin reads in English roughly as follows: "Our new "Hydro-Slip-Super" swim fin with its blade angled downwards by 20° and outwards by 6° and its open-toed, comfortable, foot-friendly shoe-like foot pocket." The manufacturer was VEB DEGUFA of Berlin-Weißensee.

So the Hydro-Slip Super was an assymetrical fin worn with the longer blade tip on the outside. Each pair had "handed" foot pockets, meaning that there were differently shaped pockets for the right and left feet. This was the first East German fin with a toe opening, but later versions of the Hydro-Slip Super appear to have reverted to a closed-toe design. The foot pockets on the newer versions came with pronounced toe-caps, however, which could be cut out, if required, to accommodate growing feet:

The range of available colours included green and black:

These fins certainly have a distinctive appearance for their time. However, the Hungarians came up with a similar fin design around the same time called the "Tihany":

Note how the Tihany also differs from the Hydro-Slip Super in that it has two centre ribs instead of one and its foot pocket is open-toed:

I'll move on next to East Germany's flagship fin, the "Naiade", which is still available new from Hungary.

 

[Compressor]

As promised, here is a new thread in a series focusing on underwater swimming equipment manufactured in certain East European countries during the second half of the twentieth century.

A short history lesson. We are beginning with the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which started life after World War II as the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany, while the Federal Republic of Germany (IFRG) arose from the territory of the American, British and French Occupation Zones of Germany. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ended the GDR and its territory was soon absorbed into the FRG to create a united Germany. In its time, the GDR was known within the western world as "East Germany" and its capital city East Berlin usually only appeared in western newspapers whenever GDR border guards fired on East Germans attempting to escape to West Berlin. Since then, press articles have tended to focus on matters such as the files kept by the East German Stasi security police whenever the subject of the former GDR arises.

This vision of the former GDR was one of the reasons why I visited the country during the 1970s to make up my own mind about the land and its people. Another reason was that I felt obliged, as a schoolteacher of German, to familiarise myself with what was the least known and understood German-speaking country of Europe. What I saw and experienced there confirmed some aspects of western press coverage, but opened my eyes to the fact that the country had a functioning economy, including retail outlets, restaurants, hotels and the people were friendly and curious about my visit, although officialdom was somewhat brusque. If nothing else, I valued staying in the hotel where the post-war Potsdam Agreement was signed and in the Weimar hotel where Germany's Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, used to accommodate his lady friends. I left East Germany with a critical but more rounded view of the country.

I recall reading somewhere decades ago that the sale of underwater swimmining equipment in general, and breathing equipment in particular, was restricted in the GDR due to its potential use for escape to the west. I can't confirm whether this is so, but during my stay I managed to locate the GDR's diving magazine Poseidon, which contained plenty of articles and photographs about recreational subaquatic activity by young and old alike. Within the pages of this issue, the pictures showed divers wearing the fins, masks and snorkels I will showcase here and in related threads.

Right, enough talk and on to the fins. I am indebted here to online diving gear museums, which have East German fins among their inventory. First up is a fin home-made by a Dr Rauschert in 1950 but never commercially manufactured:

Dr Rauschert fin
View attachment 425329

Next up is the so-called Kessner fin:

Kessner fin
View attachment 425330
According to easydive24.de | Exponate des Sporttauchermuseums: Flossen, this fin was designed by Helmut Kessner at the outset of the 1950s and went into industrial production at the Deutsche Gummiwarenfabrik (known as DeGuFa) rubber goods factory in 1953 as the first in the series of fins manufactured in the GDR.

I'll leave it there for today. In my next contribution I will showcase the fins accompanying the GDR MEDI diving outfit of the 1950s.

Amazing stuff; Thank you.

 

[David Wilson]

Thank you for your interest, compressor. I will now proceed to the East German flagship fin, the Naiade. The name of the fin comes from the Ancient Greek word for a water nymph.

Naiade

I mentioned at the end of my previous message that the fin is currently available from Hungary, where it is made using the original moulds and sold as a swim training fin. If you want to check whether a Naiade fin was made in East Germany, the place to look is the heel:

The image above shows the Guwelin logo (below), declaring that the fin is a VEB Gummiwerke Berlin product of the publicly owned (East) Berlin Rubber Works, hence made in the GDR.

The Naiade caused something of a sensation throughout the Soviet bloc. The original blueprint was published in a diving magazine there:

The closed-heel, closed-toe fin came in five sizes, numbered 0 to 4. The soft toecaps could be cut away to provide extra space for growing feet:

The fin was available in colours other than black:

The Soviets were so impressed with the fin that their Mosrezina factory in Moscow came out with a replica, Model 6 in its 7-model offering:

I reviewed the Mosrezina No. 6 fin in a separate thread at Soviet fins: Models 1-7. In the GDR, the 'Naiade' was the fin of choice of East German military combat swimmers. Its manufacture later moved to the landlocked country of Hungary, which like East Germany was part of the communist bloc of eastern Europe until the fall of the Soviet Union.

Extraordinarily, the fin is still being manufactured in Hungary. It has now received a new lease of life as an aid to swimmers and you can purchase a pair if you order one at STANDARD fins; no commercial interest to declare, I'm just a staisfied customer. Apart from the markings, the Najade Standard fin is a replica of the Naiade fin developed in East Germany during the early 1960s, copied as the Mosrezina Rusalka fin in the USSR in the mid-1960s and now sold over the Internet in 2017:

I own a pair of Hungarian-made Najade Standards and can confirm that they are very comfortable and efficient fins, which have been 'homologated', or approved, for use in competitive finswimming races. They come with the same soft 'toecaps' that can be cut away to allow toes to protrude beyond the foot pocket if necessary; personally, I wouldn't mutilate my fins in that way! The original East German made fins are still popular in Germany, often seen on eBay, thanks to what is called 'Ostalgie', or 'East-algia' there, meaning something along the lines of 'nostalgia for the East German way of life'.

That's it for the moment as far as East German fins are concerned. I'll be starting a new thread soon dedicated to East German masks and snorkels.