Soon the police began acting against the items in her store which supposedly served to "inflame and satisfy lustful desires in a manner contrary to decency and morality." By 1992, her store had been indicted more than 2,000 times. She was also discriminated against by other organizations, including the "Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels" (a financial organization of the German book industry), which refused to admit her publishing house due to "moral concerns." The Flensburger tennis club refused to admit her due to "general concerns." In 1979, she divorced her second husband. In 1983, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer, but survived. At age 75 she obtained a diving licence. In 1996, she fulfilled a long-held dream, and opened the Beate Uhse Erotic Museum in Berlin. Three years later, in 1999, her company, Beate Uhse AG, was listed on the German stock exchange and was met with great interest in the financial community. The stock was oversubscribed 64 times in its IPO. The original stock certificates are greatly desired because of the depiction of two scantily dressed women. The Beate Uhse business continues to trade throughout Europe under the names Beate Uhse, Pabo and et Eve. In 2001, Uhse died of pneumonia in a clinic in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Uhse was one of the most important people for sexual liberation in the German-speaking world. In 1989 she received the Federal Cross of Merit (). Despite the fact that she contributed to bettering female sex lives, Beate Uhse remains a controversial feminist figure: some of the criticisms point to the fact that she consistently refused to hire female collaborators, and would objectify the female body in order to sell her products. Bibliography References External links 1919 births 2001 deaths People from Zelenogradsk Aerobatic pilots Luftwaffe pilots German sex industry businesspeople German World War II pilots People from East Prussia Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Sex educators Women in World War II Women and sexuality German women aviators 20th-century German women