Käthe Kruse

It was Christmas 1905 when Käthe Kruse´s daughter Maria, also called “Mimerle”, asked for a doll as a Christmas present. Her father, the famous sculptor Max Kruse, went to all Berlin´s stores in order to find such a doll, but all the dolls he saw were stiff, cold porcelain dolls. He thought that such dolls could never awaken motherly feelings in his daughter and so he told Käthe Kruse to design her own doll. She started with an exact idea in her mind: the doll should be warm, soft and also a little bit heavy to carry. She took a soft towel, filled it with sand and finally took a potato as a head. The first doll was born! Mimerle instantly fell in love with it, played with it and carried it around all day long. But after a few days the knots got loose, the sand came out and the potato developed a very unpleasing smell. Inspired by her daughter´s love for that first little doll, Käthe Kruse decided to develop her doll making skills and went on creating dolls for all her children. In 1910, Käthe Kruse was asked to show her handmade creations in an exhibition of self-made toys in Berlin´s department store Tietz. Her charming dolls were an overwhelming success and Käthe Kruse became famous overnight. 

In 2013, Hape added Käthe Kruse to its children’s product line. This collaboration joins together two toy industry leaders. In September 2013 Kathe Kruse celebrated the 130th birthday of the company’s founder and more than 500 people from all over Europe and the world came together to celebrate this special occasion in Donauwörth in Germany.