Beate Uhse; Built Business Empire Selling Erotica in Stores, by Mail

Beate Uhse, the grande dame of Germany’s erotica industry who built a corporate sex empire and became one of the country’s most recognized names, has died at age 81.

Uhse died from pneumonia at a hospital in Switzerland, her company said Wednesday without specifying the date of her death.

She was chairwoman of Beate Uhse AG, having gone from selling contraceptive pamphlets after World War II to creating a nationwide chain of sex stores. She took her company public on the Frankfurt stock exchange in 1999, and the offering was billed as Europe’s first erotic stock.

Uhse remained so influential in the company that on Wednesday its shares slumped more than 7% after news of her death.

Born Oct. 25, 1919, in East Prussia--then part of Germany, now in Poland--Uhse left school and went briefly to England as an au pair before earning a pilot’s license at age 18. She became a captain in the German Luftwaffe, flying fighter planes.

At the end of the war, with her husband dead, she flew a military plane from bombed-out Berlin to the state of Schleswig-Holstein with her 2-year-old son to build a new life near the city of Flensburg.

At first selling pamphlets about toys and buttons, she began in 1948 to publish a calendar with contraceptive advice using the rhythm method--a step toward the erotica industry. In 1951, she founded a business in Flensburg delivering marriage and sex literature.

The business took off but wasn’t without controversy, and prosecutors brought more than 3,000 cases against the company--all without success.

After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Uhse’s company experienced another boom from the many East Germans eager to buy erotic goods that had been banned under communism. The company’s large erotic museum in Berlin is a popular tourist attraction. Beate Uhse launched its own pay-TV channel in March.

The company has 93 stores in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France and more than 100 franchises across Europe. Sales increased 72% in the first quarter this year to $50 million. Its big mail-order business rose nearly threefold in the same period, and plans call for expansion into the United States.

Uhse herself became a symbol of graceful aging, with personality magazines publishing photo spreads showcasing her trips to exotic locations.

In the early 1980s, she had surgery for stomach cancer, but she recovered and went back to playing golf and tennis--even acquiring a scuba diving certification in 1996.