Germany

Philipp comes from K*R's famous line of character dolls. Made about 1912 in Waltershausen, the doll is a socket-head with an open/closed mouth, sleeping eyes, and a human-hair wig. Simon & Halbig cast and fired the head. The doll is marked "K*R//S&H//115A//55."		Another character doll made in 1912 by K*R, this 17-3/4-inch doll is a socket-head with an open mouth with two teeth, sleeping eyes, and a human-hair wig.

The Dolls of Waltershausen

By Kurt Palka

From about 1865 through 1928, the German doll industry led the world in the manufacture of top-quality porcelain dolls. French doll makers, while offering dolls in the most wonderfully extravagant costumes and accessories, came in a distant second. Amazingly, the legendary J.D. Kestner, Kämmer & Reinhardt, and Heinrich Handwerck were among the doll companies located in one little village, Waltershausen. Here in this town on the northernmost edge of the Thüringer Wald (forest) in Thuringia in eastern Germany, workers made fine porcelain dolls for the world by the millions. Waltershausen, you won't be surprised to know, even uses the image of a doll in its coat of arms.

But the bustling slowed and finally stopped in Waltershausen. Changing tastes and the disastrous effect of World War I and the build-up for the onset of World War II caused the doll companies to close their doors. Then, after World War II, Waltershausen found itself under communist rule in a divided Germany, and Walterhausen, like much of East Germany, languished for the next 49 years, with a few exceptions. The tradition of making top-quality dolls continues in the village through Waltershäuser Puppenmanufaktur.

This village doesn't offer the usual allures of a tourist destination, but doll collectors are fascinated when they visit. You can walk past the abandoned factory buildings of the once-booming doll industry and spot all sorts of amazing remnants of the old glory days. You can see "1907, K*R" incised on the arched parapet of a large rambling brick building that once was a Kämmer & Reinhardt factory, and, over on its arched gateway, you can read the K*R slogan, "Für Kinder ist das Beste gut genug," or "For children, only the best is good enough."

So many doll companies came to this area because the porcelain industry was here. Not far away in Grafenhain, also in Thuringia, Simon & Halbig made its own dolls, as well as casting and firing the dolls from many other doll makers. Porcelain makers had settled in this part of Germany to take advantage of the excellent clay so rich in quartz, fieldspar, and especially kaolin for making porcelain with a soft look. Another factor was all the wood in Thüringer Wald, which provided the fuel necessary to fire enormous kilns as high as four stories. These kilns could fire many thousands of items, from dishes to doll heads, in one firing cycle, but these firings, according to records left behind, could last as long as seven days from warm-up to cool-down.

The Heinrich Handwerck doll company made this 21-1/2-inch doll in Waltershausen around 1900. Her bisque head and body were tinted light brown. The doll is a socket-head with pierced ears, an open mouth with four glass teeth, sleeping eyes, and a human-hair wig.		All made in Waltershausen in the 1880s by J. D. Kestner, these dolls, (left to right) are: Margaret, 14 inches, a socket-head; Maria, 14 inches, a turned shoulder-head; Flower Girl, almost 15 inches, a socket-head and probably made for the French trade, and Lambkin, almost 13 inches and made for the French market. Lambkin became the prototype for the famous bébé Bru line.

Kämmer & Reinhardt, called K*R because of its distinctive marking stamped on the back of each doll, was founded by Ernst Kämmer and Franz Reinhardt in Waltershausen in 1886. By 1907, this thriving company was shipping nearly 90 percent of its dolls outside Germany. Much of its success can be attributed to constant innovation. Throughout the company's life, it registered more patents and came up with more innovations than its competitors, and it did so without slipping in the overall quality and detailing of its dolls. But the innovation that K*R is most remembered for today — character baby dolls — did not come until in 1909.

At a toy exhibition, K*R officials saw the baby dolls of Marion B. Kaulitz, and they knew they had discovered yet another innovation. The faces of her dolls varied and had lively, realistic expressions, and K*R began to consider manufacturing similar dolls. In 1909, the K*R bent-limbed baby character dolls debuted in the Munich Exhibit. Never before had dolls had faces that looked like they were crying or sulking, and today the rarest of the K*R character dolls, mostly the 102 to 106 molds, are the world's most expensive antique dolls.

All dolls are shown courtesy of the Welser Puppenwelt Museum, the private museum of Dr. F. and Reingard Palka in Austria. The author expresses thanks to Ms. Eckert for exclusive access to this collection, for her sharing of knowledge, and for her tireless patience and help.