Miss Germany
| Formation | 1927 |
|---|---|
| Type | Beauty Pageant |
| Headquarters | Berlin |
| Location | |
|
Membership
|
Miss World |
|
Official language
|
German |
Miss Germany is a national beauty pageant in Germany. The contest was held for the first time in 1927.
In the past there were several organisations which claimed the title: In the 1920s already, German jurisdiction decided that the title Miss Germany could not be patented or registered, thus everybody was allowed to run a contest and name the winner Miss Germany. A similar decision followed in 1982. This resulted in having two titleholders in some years (as in 1928, 1931, 1953 and 1982), elected by different associations. In 1953, the new organiser and main sponsor of the pageant, the Opal stocking industries, acquired the international franchises for Miss Europe, Miss World, and Miss Universe and built up a kind of monopoly: Other promoters could not delegate their winners to international competitions, thus such rival contests became unattractive. The election of Heidi Krüger by the daily newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost remained an exception for many years.
During the National Socialist era there were held no beauty contests. The Nazi government prohibited them as a "Jewish-Bolshevik decadence", and instead of them publicised the election of (local) Harvest, Bloom, and Wine Queens. The government forbade Charlotte Hartmann the participation in the Miss Europe contest in Paris, France. She had been elected Miss Germany a few days before the beginning of the Nazi rule, and secretly took part in the pageant, nevertheless. In substitution, the Saar Territory which was governed by the League of Nations chose a Miss, which was allowed to travel to international competitions.
In the GDR, beauty pageants were also forbidden as "degradation and exploitation of the woman by capitalism". Nevertheless, in the Eastern part of Berlin there were held some contests, camouflaged as culture-evenings, in the second half of the 1980s. The winners received a cake and a bouquet as a prize. In 1990, the MGC (see above) held the only official election for Miss DDR. The winner, Leticia Koffke, became the first all-German Miss Germany a few months later.
In some years, no national contests were held: The German delegates for international pageants were hand-picked out of the regional winners, without a final. So it happened from 1972 to 1978. In 1971, the term of Irene Neumann was even extended for another year.
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