Germany was Playboys first foreign edition, published in August 1972. Italy became the second, published in November 1972. With their first issue, Germany produced their own cover and within 6 months started doing their own Playmate centerfolds of German girls. As inventors of the modern printing process, the Germans have always been way ahead of much of the world in the quality of printed books and magazines . Not only were their Playboy magazines spectacular looking for the fine printing and design, but they attracted photographers from all over Europe and America that wanted to shoot for them. Germany, like much of Europe, did not suffer from APE, as Allen Sherman coined it, the American Puritan Ethic , so they had no problem attracting beautiful women who would take their clothes off for a national publication. In fact, the German edition published several covers displaying pubic hair which, of course, would never have flown in the US.