DadTalk

Playmobil for Imagination

Most of the toy firms have shut, or gone to China where more than eight out of every 10 toys in the world are now made. But there is one left: Brandstatter, the company that makes Playmobil.

link

There used to be more than a 1,000 toy makers in the small town of Zirndorf, Bavaria. Tap, tap, tapping away, making wooden dolls, hobby horses and metal soldiers. Toys, as we know them, started life in this area of Germany, where the craftsmen were skilled and the tin mines provided plentiful raw material.

Most of the toy firms have shut, or gone to China where more than eight out of every 10 toys in the world are now made. But there is one left: Brandstatter, the company that makes Playmobil. In an anonymous modern building, resembling the sales office of a pharmaceutical company, works the last great Gepetto of Bavaria: Horst Brandstatter.

He is 76 now, and wears slippers to work but he is the man who is responsible for bringing to life 2.3 billion little plastic people, with stiff legs, no noses and smiley faces, who live forever in toy cupboards and under sofas around the world.

That's three times the population of Europe. All are accompanied by the vehicles, accessories and buildings that make up the world of Playmobil: fire engines, dumper trucks, spades, swords, kettles, octopuses, palaces for princesses and castles for knights. Everything in 1:24 scale.

Mr Brandstatter is adamant that the company will not start to make licensed toys such as Star Wars or Harry Potter Playmobil. "Children should make their own story. And I hope that there is enough fantasy in the Playmboil world that they can make their own story. I hope we can keep with that philosophy.

Read the rest of the Playmobil story from The Telegraph