Yesterday I mentioned the cultural nature of a nation's toys. Like Britain and every other country, Germany's old toy culture is born out of it's past and in particular its fairy tales, folklore and children's TV, influenced by its many neighbouring European states. There is also a great affection for the American West and in particular Winnetou.
Tin and plastic played a major role in German childrens' vintage toys and whilst browsing at a car boot sale there I saw a beautiful doll's bathroom made by Fuchs in 1971. Of museum quality, it was a snip at just 25 Euros but I had no way of getting such a large toy back to Britain. Fortunately there are several examples on the net to admire and here's one from a equally smitten flicker user, diepuppenstubesammlerin.
Soft plastic and rubber features heavily in old and very popular TV character toys such as Sandmaennchen [English: littlle sandman] and Mainzelmaennchen [English: little men from Mainz] and they can be found allover Germany at Floehmarkten [flea markets], Antiquitaeten Laden [Antique Shops] and Ebay.de.
Sandmännchen began life in 1959 and two versions were created: one in East Germany (Unser Sandmännchen), and one in West Germany (Das Sandmännchen). It has a fascinating history and is covered on Wikipedia.
Mainzelmännchen were born on ZDF, Germany's second TV channel. They were the station's mascots [not sure if we had TV station mascots in the UK?] and the name is a play on the words "Mainz" and "Heinzelmännchen"), created by Wolf Gerlach in 1963. It's incredibly popular and they still appear between commercials now [Wiki].
There are many more old toy figures collected by Germans such as these Kasperle Puppen from traditional glove puppet thearte. These traditional toys are still being manufactured today!
I will be leaving Playmobil and Kinder Toys alone as I'm not keen on them and everything about them can be found on the web anyway. One general observation I can make about them is that they fit into what I would call safe toys, toys which cannot offend and have no military reference, a tradition/ behaviour I assume arose during the country's post-war reconstruction and pacification. Many other modern traditional toy figures seem to adhere to this safe mode of play such as Cowboys and Indians, Knights in Armour and Pirates, which modern German toy shops are full of. However, this is my own personal theory and I maybe completely wrong. is it like this in other countries?
In my next post in this thread I'll cover Winnetou, Old Shatterhand, Karl May and some more traditional character toys such as Mecki the Hedgehog.
Woodsy, you hit a bunch of nostalgia buttons with the
ReplyDeleteMainzelmännchen. During the ten years I spent over there we never got AFN and so I watched German TV - and enjoyed it immensely. The Sandmaennchen we would watch as the kids were growing up of course. As for doll house furniture, I still have a box full of Bauernmalerei (tole painted, or in the UK I think it's called 'boat' painted???) wooden furniture just itchin' to be blogged.