Doll and Toy Museum
Puppen und Spielzeug Museum
Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany
ABOVE: A souvenir postcard shows a display of
dolls and an antique train set at the Puppen & Spielzeug Museum in Rothenburg.
Toys have long held
a fascination for Germans--and for visitors to Germany. In his essay,
"German Toys,"
Andreas Thomsen writes:
"Germany was the first country where toy-making became a
commercial industry...75% of the dolls and 50% of the toys in the Museum of
Childhood in Edinburgh are German."
 Nowhere
is the German fascination with toys more evident than in the
Puppen &
Spielzeug Museum, or Doll and Toy Museum, in Rothenburg ob der Tauber.
The
museum, which began as a private collection more than 60 years ago, draws some
40,000 visitors a year. Its collection includes more than 800 dolls, most of
which were manufactured in Germany and France from the late 1700s through 1940.
Other exhibits include antique doll houses, doll shops, doll classrooms, doll
kitchens, doll bedrooms, doll music rooms, doll theatres, and other environments
for Puppen--together with a generous sampling of other vintage playthings
such as tea sets, carousels, stuffed animals, trains, tin soldiers, and carved
wooden toys.
When you visit, you may be fortunate enough to meet the owner,
Katharina Engels, who began her current collection as a teenager after her
childhood dolls were destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II. She brought
the collection to Rothenburg ob der Tauber in 1984, and today her museum (which
occupies several floors in a 15th Century house) is one of Rothenburg's most
popular tourist attractions.
Next page:
Practical information, Web link
Postcard photos copyright © Katharina Engels Puppen & Spielzeug
Museum. Used by permission.
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