Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-12-25
GERMAN TOY MEN'S'
CHRISTMAS IS SAD.
Poor Business, Due to U. S.
NTariff and Other Causes,
Are Assigned.
by EDGAR ANSEL MOWRER.

2 Daily News
SBERLIN, Germany.-This is a sad
Christmas in the homes of German
tesnakers.
sPoor business, starvation wages. un-
eanployment-those are rings In the
chain that binds the people who for
200 years have provided Europe and
The United States with the most loved
toys.
lTour.fifths of all German-made toys
are sold abroad, one.fffth in the United
States. Unttl the United States raised
its tariff on toys from 35 TO 20 per
cent American children we're Ger
Britain buys more German toys than
any other country, with the United
States second and Holland third.
zach year fewer German toys are
sent to the United States. The rea.
sons are. first, the tariff. which makes
imported toys more expensive, and.
second, the changing tastes of chill
dren, to which the toymakers have
been slow To adapt themselves. Now
expensive American toys are imported
into Germany and are bought by the
wealthy in preference to German
products.
1t was in the older. more artistic.
quainter things. as well as in cheap
trIfies-all made by hand-that the
Germans were supreme. The demand
for those things diminishes and. the
old.fashioned toymakers are growing
old and thin. Their descendants are
learning new trades.
Where the Toys Are Made.
II is hard to say how toys are made,
because hardly any two are made
alike. There are over | 900 places in
Germany where toys are produced.
Roughly, tLey are grouped in five
areas.
The first is in and around Nurem-
berg. There in factories are produced
metal and mechanical toys of the bet
ter grades, coarse wooden toys, cloth
toys, printed picture books, cardboard
games and papier mache toys other
than dolls.
In Walthershausen are made the
6f1est and most costly dolls. with real
socket joints. and wooden, porcelain
and papier mache toys.
Brandenburg, around Berlin. turns
out cheap tiny notions and penny
toys -whistles, small dolls. packs of
cards, funny men with a squeak, and
so on.
Sonneberg. on the southern edge of
the Thuringian Forest. is the cradle
OF literally millions of dolls. There
men. women and children walk the
streets loaded with hampers containing
dolls and parts of dolls. And there is
a museum where one may study the
finest types of artistic. humorous and
mechanical dolls of the last two cen
tirieS. In the surrounding villages
an entire toy-making population vel
comes visitors who come to see how
the toys are made.
Many Toys in Saxony.
The fifth toy-making district is Sax
ony. There one finds everything, from
the poor wooden toys of the Chemnitz
factories, the mouth organs and mu.
steal toys of klingenthal and the Won
derful reproducing villages of the
Ore Mountains. In these villages the
specially is wood working. and nearly
every town produces q special type of
toy
Most modern toys have developed
from older toys. The first dolls in
Waltherhausen had cloth bodies and
limbs Of paper mache. This led to the
making Of plush animals. There Rob
ert Unger made the first German Ted
dy bear. The first jointed doll and the
first that closed its eyes were made
over so years ago. Another man gave
real eyelashes and articulated teeth to
fIOllS. special mamma OOllS WIN
fine voices, invented in America, are
now being initiated in Germany.
The introduction of rogue" or cross
eyed dolls was a great stimulus TO
German doll making. Today any NUM-
Der of character dolls are made and
sold throughout the Vocabulary Pick
ford. Charles Chaplin. Jackie Coosan
dolls. kewpies. Quaker girls and milk
maids. Mutt and Jeff and many others.
Making eyes for dolls is very old
craft. II is done by specially trained
glass blowers, who sometimes make
glass eyes for people as we'll. Dolls
shoes and clothing are usually made
by firms scattered through the doll
making districts.
Usually different parts of dolls are
made in homes, each part by a differ
ent person. The parts are taken to
the factories as they are completed.
Nodded heads are sent out to be paint
ed and nodded limbs to be Joined. The
final assembling and retouching and
packing are done in factories.
This year Germans are buying as
many toys for their children as they