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Though less celebrated than the economic miracle, or Wirtschaftswunder, another happy postwar transformation has overtaken West Germany. It might be called the Fraeuleinwunder. In place of the pigtailed, fat-at-elbow female who used to be the popular image of Teutonic womanhood, a new generation of luscious, leggy girls has grown up for the delight of girl watchers everywhere --not to mention the tens of thousands of G.I.s who have married Muedchen.

Germany's three big fashion shows, just concluded, not only displayed the smart ready-to-wear clothes that have helped put chic into German life; they were also an eye-popping showcase for the girls themselves. Since more than 1,000 models are needed for each of the big shows in Munich, Berlin and Duesseldorf, more than half of them are recruited from offices, universities, cafe society--and it is becoming more and more difficult to tell the amateur beauties from the pros.

Help from Hamburger. Modeling is one field in which German girls are increasingly sought after both at home and abroad. Bavaria's Ina Balke and Rhinelander Dagmar Dreger are among Manhattan's highest-paid models. German mannequins are in equally great demand in Paris; most of them came to France originally as domestic servants, although one of the most noted, Brigitte Laaf, is the daughter of a wealthy Cologne businessman.

The situation is similar in the movies. From Rome's Cinecitta to Hollywood, yesteryear's Latin and Anglo-Saxon actresses are being challenged by such talented Teutons as Romy Schneider, Elke Sommer, Nadja Tiller and Senta Berger. Eddie Fisher rebounded from Liz with the help of a Hamburger--pert, blonde Renata Boeck. Tony Curtis left Janet Leigh for dark, Munich-born Christine Kaufmann.

Even top German women athletes--among them, Olympic Figure Skating Champion Marika Kilius and Sprinter Jutta Heine--look more like starlets than muscle-maids. At the Lido in Paris, where the famed Bluebell girls were once mostly English imports, one-fifth of the dancers are now German. Las Vegas talent scouts are also turning to Germany. Pan American Airways, which recruits 150 foreign stewardesses yearly, now finds a sizable percentage of them in West Germany. The Germans even boast two of Europe's prettiest politicians, Bundestag Deputies Hedda Heuser and Annemarie Renger.

The Aryan Look. The postwar German girl seems to have come from another world than the one her mother inhabited and in effect, she has. German women have always had considerable natural assets--among others, the advantage of being, despite Hitler's theories, a mixture of many different racial strains. But the assets tended to be hidden in one way or another. Romantic German poets sang the love of their women to the point of distraction, but their heroines usually sounded remote and untouchable. Faust's demure Gretchen was touchable, all right--but he left her to go cavorting in the Devil's company with Helen of Troy.

German womanhood moved from romanticism and prudery straight into the miseries of World War I and the inflationary postwar years, when the country was too poor and too hungry to do much about cultivating beauty, when few German women could afford to dress well or to eat nonstarchy foods. Occasionally, beauty of a fascinating and slightly wicked kind did grow from the ruins, personified by that incomparable charmer, Marlene Dietrich. But then came the Nazis, who insisted that women's role was to keep house and bear children for the Third Reich. Pro claimed Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, head of all Nazi women's organizations: "Our weapon is the cooking spoon."

Though even blondes bleached their hair for the super-Aryan look, the Nazis frowned on such womanly weapons as alluring clothes and makeup, considered that cotton undershirts and muslin slips were the proper attire for the descendants of breast-plated Valkyries. Their functional ideal was personified by Hitler's dark-blonde mistress, Eva Braun, and like her, it died with Hitler.

Generation of Models. But the country's extraordinary postwar recovery resuscitated the German girl. Says Marlies Hessel, a former Miss Germany: "Very few girls seem to grow up to be ugly any more. Ugliness is something that is bred by adversity. Perhaps beauty is flowering now because we have weathered something very close to hell."

In a nation where women outnumber men by 3,000,000, German girls today have to compete to catch male eyes. They can afford to, since more than 90% of all the nation's women between the ages of 20 and 40 have jobs--a proportion unequaled in Western Europe. Guided by countless women's magazines and a keenly competitive, cosmopolitan fashion industry, they spend a hefty proportion of their earnings on hairdos, makeup and clothes. For the first time, German couturiers --notably Willy Bogner, Bessy Becker, Heinz Queisser--have established worldwide reputations.

As the girls' svelte, springy figures attest, they watch their diets, eat healthier food, and probably take more exercise than any other women in the world. Louella Ballerino, a swimsuit designer for California's Rose Marie Reid, finds that German girls today tend to be skinnier of hip than young Americans and Italians. This "generation of fashion models," as one approving editor calls it, averages 5 ft. 6 in. in the 14-25 age bracket, one inch taller than other European girls, and it boasts unbeatable vital statistics (35-24-35).

Beauty Bounty. Nor is the change only skin--or even bikini--deep. Says Chief Editor F. W. Koebner of Elegante Welt, Germany's leading fashion and society magazine: "The breakup and reorganization of German society has given the individual German girl the material and psychological means to become beautiful." She has rejected her parents' ideals and escaped the self-sufficient autocracy that used to be family life in Germany. By contrast with her insular parents, she is worldly, well-traveled, avid for the fads and fashions of other nations. She has a new sense of identity and self-confidence, and she has undergone a startling social emancipation.

On the whole, German men seem to be spoiled and not appreciative enough of the feminine bounty all around them. Writers and poets are busier decrying the dangers of prosperity than extolling the beauty of their women, and politicians, beginning with Chancellor Ludwig Erhard and Opposition Leader Willy Brandt, are much too stuffy to allow themselves to comment publicly on such matters. But the Fraeuleinwunder is there for all to see with delight. George McGhee, 52, the Texas oilman who has been U.S. Ambassador to Bonn for the past year, says carefully: "Of course, I am a married man. But even by Texas standards I don't see how any American can fail to observe and be impressed at the charm, wit and distinction of German women."

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