It is impossible to throw a rock in Sonneberg, the Spielzeugstadt, without hitting an old doll or toy factory. In fact, virtually every human being in old Sonneberg was dedicated in one way or another to financing, supplying, producing, marketing and distributing dolls and toys.

     The town’s centerpiece is the former School of Industry, where students studied sculpting, painting, model-making, mechanics, and most important, the products of foreign competitors. The school’s collection of illustrative toys, enhanced with samples donated by the Sonneberg factory owners, formed the basis of the Deutsches Spielzeugmuseum collection. It is not only the oldest toy museum in Germany, but documentation of the toy history of Sonneberg, the world’s largest doll and toy distribution center for more than 200 years. Start with the basement display which features an actual dollmaker’s room and the dazzling Sonneberg 1910 Brussels World's Fair exhibit. Work you way up through each floor of original Sonneberg dolls and toys, including some stunning salesman’s sample boards. Every doll in the collection is worth studying. A special exhibit entitled "Artist Dolls Yesterday & Today" is presented in conjunction with the Puppenfest.

     In the nearby Friedhof, with our guide Hanns Arthur Schoenau, we visit the monuments of the doll and toy celebrities of old Sonneberg.

     Our souvenir map of Sonneberg identifies more than 150 historic locations where dolls, masks, plush toys and more were manufactured. Walk the historic streets of Sonneberg and see some of the buildings and mansions that were once the domain of the wealthy doll merchant families. None of the historic factories are still in operation, but since reunification, some toy manufacturing is returning to Sonneberg.

     Lauscha, in the Thuringian Shiefergebirge, has been a center for glassblowing since the 16th century, when a group of Protestant glassblowers relocated there from Swabia in order to escape Catholic persecution. They produced everything from lamps to Weihnachtskugeln, and invented the special silvering process that makes Christmas ornaments sparkle. From about the middle of the 19th century, eyes of glass for the German doll and toy industry were almost exclusively produced by home-workers in Lauscha. Glasbläserei Köhler is the only such home-industry in existence in Lauscha today, blowing glass doll eyes in exactly the same manner as they were 100 years ago. Watch the formation of an eye from a simple, opal-glass tube. Do you know why, in the dawn of the 20th century, blown eyes came from Germany and paperweight eyes from France?