The Cynicism of Capitalism: 2: Partners Wanted

The company’s prospectus is a colourful document of orange, red, yellow and gold paper. Pages are perforated by cut-outs of hearts. If all this seems a bit unusual, the prospectus offering is more so, as The Guardian (17th January) revealed. It is an invitation to the West German public by Kohle Liengeschaften to purchase limited partnership in an operation currently consisting of brothels in Konstanz, a town on Germany’s Swiss border, and Kaiserslautern which is near Mannheim and a NATO base.

“The oldest profession in the world is also the solidest,” the Company says on the cover of the prospectus. And an accompanying letter to potential investors suggests that purchasing a partnership in the enterprise “is an investment worth while because Irma La Douce never has a recession.”

The profession may have been around for a long time but it is believed that the Kohle venture is the first time capital has been publicly — and legally — raised in West Germany for an enterprise of this kind. And the financial enticements are substantial since the company is guaranteeing a minimum annual return of 9 per cent. “This is a better investment than stock,” asserts Herr Kohle, founder and managing director.

In Germany prostitution is considered a social necessity. The administration generally approves the existence of bordellos on the ground that they keep prostitutes off the streets (brothel bedrooms are officially referred to as places of work). So accepted is the profession in fact that there is even a slickly-written travel guide to West German brothels and red-light districts that lists each house and its location on a city-by-city basis and rates the house according to parking facilities, prices, service and amenities.

Prostitution is not a new venture for Kohle Liengeschaften. The real estate operation currently derives its income from renting small apartments to prostitutes and from concessionaires such as the night-club operators at the Kaiserslautern facility. The company, Herr Kohle emphasises, receives no direct part of any prostitutes earnings. Herr Kohle says that there are currently forty-seven “lady tenants” at Kaiserslautern and thirty-five at Konstanz. Generally, he says, a girl stays for three or four years. How long she stays usually depends upon whether she is making money and whether she feels secure.

The brothels are advantageously situated. The Kaiserslautern operation is the only one of its kind near the NATO base, while the Konstanz operation is near a casino and just across the border from Switzerland, where prostitution is illegal. The brothels’ “lady tenants” are checked by the management for police records, among other things. “We don’t take all the girls who apply,” Herr Kohle says. “For example, we don’t want wild women.” The girls, he adds, come from all over Europe. In return, the girls sign rental contracts for an indefinite period. In addition to protection, Herr Kohle says the company also provides apartments at Kaiserslautern where the girls’ relatives can stay when they visit. He adds that the company is also considering construction of a separate facility next year at Kaiserslautern for children of the prostitutes. These features, Herr Kohle says, offer the girls some security and “take some of the harshness out of the profession”.

Herr Kohle’s “new style” operations have borne financial fruit. So far nearly £600,000 in limited partnerships has been purchased by 120 to 130 investors. The limited partnerships are sold in £5,500 units. However, to attract the small investor and to provide anonymity, several investors may each put up £550 and pool their investments to make the minimum for a partnership unit. According to its prospectus, Kohle Liengeschaften is currently offering equity capital equivalent to £1 million or about £150,000 less than the estimated market value of the two properties. By the end of 1973 the company hopes to have eight brothels in Germany and Austria. To reach this goal he says about £4.5 million will have to be raised.

The company is advertising in newspapers and is selling partnerships through investment consultants and through its own sales office, which includes some former IOS Mutual Fund salesmen. Herr Kohle is a 43-year- old entrepreneur who is also in the construction and investment business and says that he put together Kohle Liengeschaften because “there was still room for adventure” in his life. He says he is optimistic about the future of the venture. “Prostitution has weathered all the storms over the past 2,000 years without a crisis and I don’t see one now unless the human race changes,” he says.

Here we have an example of the mentality that views all things as commodities, including the female sexual capacity. The brothel in this case is the market place, the buyers desirous males. Herr Kohle need fear no change in the human race, but he has left out of his calculation the fact that a section of the human race — the working-class section — will change conditions and, as a consequence, will change the behaviour of the human race. This is a change that will remove the commodity status from society and thus eliminate all forms of prostitution — and prevent the likes of him from exploiting women.

R.AMBRIDGE