Her company is older than the German Republic – she herself is better known than the German Chancellor: 98 per cent of the population knows Beate Uhse. Her name stands for a legend of German moral history and is a synonym for sexual freedom. To recount her stirring biography and exemplary success story is to detail German history itself: the postwar period, the economic miracle, the feminist movement, the fall of the wall and the exchange of our economic system for shareholder-value capitalism. Often prosecuted, always a bone of contention, Beate Uhse fought for more than half a century not just for sexual enlightenment, but also for the commercial success of her sex-business.