GERMANY: Nutcracker workshop in Eastern Germany in full swing as it produces a variety of wooden nutcrackers for the festive season.

Record ID: 644348

  • Title: GERMANY: Nutcracker workshop in Eastern Germany in full swing as it produces a variety of wooden nutcrackers for the festive season.
  • Date: 15th December 2006
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF WOODEN PLANKS BEING SAWN
  • Embargoed: 30th December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA1MLUUGMO5FSNGZQLMB0B1J515
  • Story Text: Tourists from around the world love him as he is, but the traditional wooden German nutcracker doll has a tougher time in eastern Germany where he is made.
    The traditional christmas nutcracker has to be permanently reinvented by the workshops in Seiffen in the Erzgebirge so that he can keep up with the demands of the markets.
    "Traditional nutcrackers are obviously the King, the Forester and the Policeman. Fifty years ago these were absolute hits. But in the last few years customers have approached the manufacturers asking for completely different designs, new designs from a whole variety of professions, in groups representing the whole spectrum of society. And of course we have adapted to these wishes to keep production going, to keep the business going."
    Next to the traditional models, the Nutcracker House offers around 300 different types of nutcracker dolls, from drummers and wise men to soldiers and angels - and of course what would be a christmas tradition without a Father Christmas nutcracker doll? There is even a nutcracker model of the first President of the United States, George Washington, complete with a white wig, lace shirt and bow tie.
    The Ulbricht family who own the workshops have been turning wood in Seiffen since 1705, and have been producing traditional Erzgebirge artwork since 1928. The Erzgebirge is world renowned for its woodwork and handicrafts, particularly Christmas decorations, traditional nutcrackers, angels and 'smoking men'. And they emphasise the fact that the products are not just traditionally from the area, but that they are also still traditionally made by hand.
    "Our products are hand-made, as they always have been," said Kluge. "In certain areas this handicraft work has been replaced over the last fifty years, as it has in many branches, it is also affecting our branch. But the main part is all done by hand, simply because such a small figure cannot be produced by a computer-controlled machine."
    The fact their products are hand-made is the Erzgebirge's biggest weapon in their fight against cheap imports from Eastern Europe and the Far East. Even though the factory of course has to be able to pay the 65 people involved in hand-painting and hand-making the nutcrackers.
    But the demand for the nutcrackers is growing according to Kluge, despite the handicrafts branch experiencing stagnating growth. 20 percent of their products are exported - they don't even begin with the production of nutcrackers for the home market until the end of summer, the first six months is spent making figures for the foreign customers.
    The majority of foreign buyers are Japanese and American, Kluge said. Tourists can get the 30 centimetre tall nutcrackers in Seiffen for 45 Euros, foreign dealers demand three times that price in the foreign markets.
    The east German nutcrackers might not be able to compare favourable prices with cheap imports from abroad, but their hundred year old tradition is hard to beat - the functional but decorative little dolls have been cracking nuts in their wooden mouths since the nineteenth century, and they have still got a lot of bite left in them.
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