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German Nutcrackers, Hand Made In Germany Nussknackerherstellung Richard Glässer Seiffen

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German Nutcrackers How They Are Made, Hand Made In Germany Nussknackerherstellung Richard Glässer Seiffen.

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Nutcrackers and how they became a part of The Nutcracker Ballet

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Nutcrackers and how they became a part of The Nutcracker Ballet

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For most people, Christmas nutcrackers- the kind that look like little men -call to mind sugarplum fairies and first trips to the ballet. I think of my mother. She's not otherwise given over to kitsch or obsessive collecting, but every year around Thanksgiving she pulls from the recesses of closets and the depths of the basement a collection of more than 150 nutcrackers. Then, with a steady soundtrack of Christmas music filling the house, she arranges them carefully by theme: Soldierly nutcrackers arrayed in dignified formation; the cheesemonger and fisherman nestled in the kitchen; several Santas all competing for the attentions of a single Mrs. Claus on a hutch in the family room; the characters from the ballet-Clara, the Mouse King, et al-in a place of honor in the dining room near my grandmother's silver.

Technically, none of this collection actually belongs to my mother: They've all been gifts she's given to her six children and her husband. There's been one for each of us every year since the day in the mid-1980s when, dress-shopping and fresh off a performance of The Nutcracker ballet, she spotted a nutcracker displayed in a department store downtown and impulsively bought it for my older brother. He found the doll too strange-that dour, almost angry, face-to keep in his room, so the nutcracker was moved downstairs and an annual tradition began. Each of the nutcrackers has, scribbled on its underside, the name of the child to whom it belongs. It's an odd little way to trace our family history, to meander among the bright dolls and try to piece together a timeline. But it's also possible to trace a larger history through these nutcrackers, which ended up in my mother's dining room thanks to German peasants, Soviet subsidies, American soldiers, and a French ballet corps.

Tools to crack nuts have been around for a long time. The earliest written reference to the tool seems to have come in the 14 th century, and they pop up as very minor footnotes throughout European history , according to Robert Mills, author of : The tool is alluded to in . King Henry VIII gave a pair of nutcrackers to Anne Boleyn (ponder the possible symbolisms of that one for a bit). Even Leonardo DaVinci expended some brainpower on the concept of how best to crack nuts-one solution he came up with was a large, horse-powered press.

As Judith A. Rittenhouse explains in her comprehensive history of nutcrackers, for many years, no one regional version of the device became dominant over the others, though most involved the same basic machinery (lots of levers and screw presses). Design and material varied wildly-brass crocodiles in India; cast-iron squirrels in England; even porcelain elsewhere in northern Europe. Wood was the most common material, and it's what German woodworkers in the Erzgebirge region * turned to in the late 17 th century when they began carving the earliest versions of the distinctive soldier-dolls we know today.

At first, these nutcrackers, often made in workshops alongside carved toys and puzzles, weren't specifically Christmas-themed-though they were commonly given as gifts-and it's impossible to pin down precisely when they took on that seasonal significance. (Nuts and thus nutcrackers are a part of many holiday celebrations-Halloween in regions of Britain and Scotland was traditionally known as Nutcrack Night.)

The dolls symbolize good luck in German tradition-one popular origin myth, related by Rittenhouse, holds that a wealthy but lonely farmer who found the process of cracking nuts to be detrimental to his productivity (efficiency even pervades German folklore!) offered a reward to whoever could come up with the best solution. Each villager drew on his own professional expertise-a carpenter advocating sawing them open, a soldier shooting the suckers. But it was the puppetmaker-a profession that seems to loom large in European tall tales -who won the day, building a strong-jawed, lever-mouthed doll.

German homes didn't typically have more than one of the dolls, and so, during rough economic times in the early 19 th century, the region's toymakers took to the roads, selling their stuff elsewhere-Russia, Poland, Norway. Demand increased, and by the 1870s, nutcrackers (among other wooden toys) had begun to be produced commercially in factories.

Nutcrackers got what would turn out to be their biggest boost when Peter Tchaikovsky adapted an 1816 E.T.A Hoffman Christmas story called The Nutcracker and the Mouse King for the-eventually-famous and wildly successful ballet, first performed in 1892. The ballet wasn't immediately a hit (though parts of its score were), so for years after its debut the German version of the nutcracker featured therein remained largely a regional phenomonen. In fact, the most popular nutcrackers at the time of the First World War were probably wood-carved human and animal heads made in the Groden Valley of Northern Italy. The Nutcracker wasn't widely performed until the mid-20 th century, when it became a distinctly American hit.

The war also played an important role in introducing Americans to the German way of cracking nuts, according to Arlene Wagner, who curates the Leavenworth Nutcracker museum. American G.I.s stationed in West Germany after the war began purchasing the figurines to send home as Christmas gifts, despite the fact that many of the dolls were modeled after Prussian soldiers and the American defeat of the Nazis was still recent history. Though there's something ancient and primal about the urge to display your felled enemy in some form or another, the popularity of these figurines probably had more to do with their charming woodwork, their bright colors, and the strength of the dollar than old-fashioned triumphalism.

Gift-hunting GIs helped keep the nutcracker-makers in business. When Germany splintered into East and West, the Erzgebirge region was behind the wall. Few in the East could afford to buy nutcrackers themselves, so East German woodworkers exported their goods to West Germany and its ready market of American soldiers. * For the remainder of the Cold War era, there was a mini nutcracker war that mirrored the larger ideological struggle: Eastern manufacturers had government subsidies-along with government price and wage setting-that allowed them to expand their operations and sell their nutcrackers at about half the cost of those made in West Germany. But the mass-produced Eastern nutcrackers soon became less carefully manufactured, and the same designs-which had to be approved by the government-were used over and over. Meanwhile, in the West, creative new designs flourished, says Wagner.

By the 1980s, there were increasingly desperate attempts to cater to American tastes. Some caught on-my mom's collection, full of mailman nutcrackers and Benjamin Franklin nutcrackers and even a Harley Davidson-riding nutcracker, is a testament to that-while others flopped. One especially controversial 1991 nutcracker, marketed once again to American GIs in Germany, was garbed in Desert Storm combat gear, toted a rifle and ammo, and was packaged in what looked like a munitions container. Even soldiers seemed largely uninterested in such a jarringly aggressive, and contemporary, bit of military iconography on a quaint Christmas decoration.

By that point, the provenance of nutcrackers didn't really matter-if it ever did-for voracious American consumers, who just wanted something that looked vaguely like the guy from the ballet. Nutcrackers had begun popping up at bargain basement prices in department stores, with "Made in China" stickers stuck to the bottom of ripped-off German designs. Some of my mother's collection was made by the venerable old nutcracker houses ( Steinbach being the most storied) and purchased at a German specialty store in Cleveland; others were made in Taiwan and bought at Target. You can tell the difference if you lift them, feel their heft, and inspect the detail. Sitting on the shelf, though, it's the bright colors and whimsy you notice, which both kinds have in spades.

What was once a restrained European folk-art pursuit has ballooned into an over-the-top tradition, thanks largely to we Americans, who spend north of $8 billion each year on Christmas decorations annually. We seem to have a national instinct to collect, particularly when it comes to pop-culture-related merch.

That Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum in Washington State, which has more than 4,000 of the figurines, began as Wagner's personal, Nutcracker-inspired collection. And since what many of us now celebrate at Christmas is, well, celebrating, it doesn't hurt that Nutcrackers are an easily recognizable symbol of a Christmas story that has nothing to do with Baby Jesus; the ballet's Christmas themes have to do with the festivities, not the theology, of the holiday.

For my mother's part, she tells me that nutcrackers felt more substantial than other Christmas decorations-ornaments break, crèche sets inevitably wind up with a wise man gone missing, but nutcrackers stand there, solidly, year after year. There's no reason, of course, that she needs well over a hundred of them. We've all moved out, leaving our nutcrackers behind-and when she lines them all up, a little army of military men, it's hard not to think she's assembling a force against the emptiness of the house, as, I suppose, many collectors are. She's not tapping into any German roots, not attempting to build value for resale, not harboring any especial historical interest in them. None of the German legends mean anything to her, really-in her mythology, the little bearded nutcrackers represent only Christmases with each of her children. It might not be strictly in keeping with German tradition, but it's precisely the sort of American sentimentalism that's kept the German tradition in business all these years.
Correction, Dec. 16, 2010: The article originally said that East German manufacturers imported nutcrackers to the West, when, of course, they exported them. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
The article originally and incorrectly said Erzgebirge is part of the Black Forest region. It also misspelled Erzgebirge. ( to the corrected sentence.)

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For most people, Christmas nutcrackers- the kind that look like little men -call to mind sugarplum fairies and first trips to the ballet. I think of my mother. She's not otherwise given over to kitsch or obsessive collecting, but every year around Thanksgiving she pulls from the recesses of closets and the depths of the basement a collection of more than 150 nutcrackers.

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Where Did the First Nutcrackers Come From?

The German nutcracker is unique to the world of German crafts being produced in the Erzgebirge mountain regions of northeastern Germany because they are one of the few crafts that were designed after the ruling class, military personnel, church leaders, and other authoritative figures that existed in Germany and throughout Europe for centuries. This is unusual because most German crafts, particularly those created in the Erzgebirge region, focused their attentions on religious themes, nature scenes, or the common German man and his daily activities. German nutcrackers, however, were symbols of the peoples dissatisfaction with the ruling class and became popular collectibles as a result.

The Erzgebirge mountain region is famous for producing quality German nutcrackers, smokers, pyramids, ornaments, figurines, and cuckoo clocks. Once a thriving community that mined silver and tin for several centuries, mining production began to slow as the natural resources of the mines began to run out. This created a situation for the German families who had been living there for many generations because they knew they had to come up with a new way to support their villages through means other than mining. During the cold, brutal winters of the Erzgebirge mountain region, most people spent their time creating whimsical crafts out of the endless supply of wood that surrounded them. This included making handmade German nutcrackers, smokers, and cuckoo clocks. Many of these traditional crafting methods had been handed down through the generations for hundreds of years.

Rather than abandoning the dying mines and moving to find jobs in the cities, the villagers of the region decided to start producing handmade wooden crafts in hopes of creating a new industry in the mountain region. As a result, families that had once been mining families recreated themselves into craft making families and the Erzgebirge artisan industry began. Today, this part of Germany is known throughout the world as the home to fine quality German nutcrackers, smokers, pyramids, ornaments, figurines, and cuckoo clocks, to name a few.

While the first nutcrackers were produced to more effectively and efficiently crack nuts, the first German nutcrackers as decorative pieces were developed somewhere between the late 1400s and early 1500s. Many of these early German nutcracker designs were in the shapes of animals, birds, and people. It was not until the late 1600s and early 1700s that German nutcrackers took on the personas of the kings, soldiers, church leaders, and policemen. As miners and villagers of the Erzgebirge region improved their carving and crafting skills, the German nutcrackers began developing into popular collectible pieces around the region and throughout Germany. People enjoyed using the German nutcrackers that were shaped like the ruling and authoritative classes because it reduced them to the position of mere crackers of nuts rather than possessing any power over their individual freedoms.

As the mines dried up and the cottage crafting industries began to take over, German nutcrackers became some of the most popular crafts for people throughout Germany to own and collect. By the mid-1700s, German nutcrackers were a popular symbol of Germany and just about everyone had their very own German nutcrackers that were mostly used as decorations and centerpieces during the Christmas season. Nuts were a popular treat during this time of year, so being able to both use and display German nutcrackers at Christmastime became a fast tradition in Germany. By the 1800s, German nutcrackers were created to represent and vilify many of the leaders and authority figures of the day. With their typical teeth-bearing grins, many artisans fashioned their German nutcrackers after unpopular kings, cruel religious figures, mean police officers, and even world famous figures, such as Napoleon. Many German nutcracker artisans took the opportunity to express their own social commentaries through the designs of their particular German nutcrackers.

While wildly popular in Germany, the German nutcracker did not experience worldwide notoriety until the late 1800s with the release of the Tchaikovsky ballet The Nutcracker Suite in 1892. The original nutcracker story came from the E.T. Amadeus Hoffmann fairytale novel, Nussknacker und Mausekonig or The Nutcracker and the King of Mice, in 1816. In 1845, French novelist Alexandre Dumas adapted the story and made it into a play that children could understand and enjoy. This popular story was then revisited in the Heinrich Hoffmann book, King Nutcracker and the Poor Reinhold, in 1851. Tchaikovsky based his famous Russian ballet on the Dumas play because it was a lighter, more optimistic tale of a little girl who dreams of being rescued by the German nutcracker prince who saves her from the evil Mouse King. The ballet remained popular throughout Russian, but did not receive worldwide acclaim until it was performed in London in 1934. From that point on, the ballet and the German nutcracker itself has become well-known throughout the world and fans have been demanding high quality German nutcrackers ever since.

As a result, German nutcracker sales and production have been a booming industry in the Erzgebirge mountain regions of Germany. Handmade German nutcrackers have been produced non-stop and sold to all corners of the world from Germany to Europe to America. While no longer considered symbols of mockery of the ruling and authority classes of Germany, they are now used to honor such figures as kings, soldiers, and police officers. The most popular German nutcrackers still remain today in the form of kings and soldiers, but other designs are also seen. Many German nutcrackers are designed to represent Santa Claus, miners, chimneysweepers, doctors, robbers, and other whimsical representations of the common man. While still made using the exacting standards that were developed hundreds of years ago, the German nutcracker remains one of the most popular and collectible pieces of art that are still being produced in the Erzgebirge mountains of Germany today.

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Where Did the First Nutcrackers Come From

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This included making handmade German nutcrackers, smokers, and cuckoo clocks. Many of these traditional crafting methods had been handed down through the generations for hundreds of years. Handcrafted Imported German Pyramids, Nutcrackers and Smokers for Christmas. Ornaments and Figurines for Spring or Easter.

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http://kidslovenutcrackers.com/lessons_1.htm

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http://kidslovenutcrackers.com/lessons_5.htm

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Odd Ways to Crack a Nut - unusual Nutcrackers

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Odd Ways to Crack a Nut - unusual Nutcrackers

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http://kidslovenutcrackers.com/lessons_4.htm

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Contact Us

Part of the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum
735 Front Street, Leavenworth, WA 98826

509.548.4573

curator@nutcrackermuseum.com

Be sure to visit our sister websites.

www.nutcrackerday.com www.nutcrackermuseum.com

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Kids Lesson Three of the Nutcracker History from the Nutcracker Museum in Leavenworth

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Contact Us Part of the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum735 Front Street, Leavenworth, WA 98826 509.548.4573 curator@nutcrackermuseum.com Be sure to visit our sister websites. www.nutcrackerday.com www.nutcrackermuseum.com Also find us on Facebook:

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When you hear the word nutcracker you think of the wood turned nutcracker from Germany-the one you see in nearly every store at Christmas time-the one whose body parts are turned on a lathe--the one with the big teeth and grim expression.But there are many more kinds of nut cracking devices, and many different materials used to make them.So let's investigate.......

Early peoples broke nutshells with rocks or "nutting stones".They would place the nut in a pitted stone to hold it in place and strike it with another stone called a "hammer stone".In the autumn they would camp near the nut trees so they could gather the nuts as they fell before the squirrels or other animals would get them.

Linden is the wood must often used to make the wooden toy soldier nutcracker as it is easy to turn on the lathe, but birch, beech and other woods are also used. Softer woods such as pine or fir are not as durable and it takes a strong wood to make a nutcracker!For turning the wood on a lathe, it must have an even and clear grain.It must not have knots as that will dull the cutting blade.

Boxwood is the favorite wood of carvers.It is a golden color, easy to carve, and very durable.Nutcrackers carved 400 to 500 years ago are still beautiful today.Other woods used by carvers are beech, maple, walnut, linden, rosewood or fruitwoods.There are some nutcrackers carved of ebony, a wood so hard it will not float in water.

Brass, an alloy of zinc and copper,has been used t make nutcrackers since the 15 th century and you can tell brass items by their beautiful golden color.You can still find many nutcrackers that were made in England In the 18 th and 19 th centuries whenBirmingham was the center for brass production.

Iron nutcrackers have been made for many centuries.The nutcrackers in this picture were made by pouring hot liquid iron into a mold. These are called "cast iron".Other nutcrackers may be "hand wrought" which means the metal is manually beaten into the desired shape. A man working with iron is called a blacksmith.

Silver is too soft a metal to withstand the pressure needed to crack a nut so there are very few of them made of solid silver.However there are many iron and brass nutcrackers that are coated or "plated" with silver.Other nutcrackers are plated with nickel or chrome to give the appearance of silver.

Aluminumis a newer metal that not developed until the 19 th century.It is a light-weight metal that is strong, easily worked, resists corrosion, and has a pleasing silver-white color.It is used in many different ways from the foil we use in the kitchen to the bodies of airplanes.And yes, you can find many nutcrackers made out of aluminum.

Although many table nutcrackers are said to be made of porcelain, only the base and frame are porcelain with actual working parts being made of metal.Several porcelain factories made these nutcrackers during the Victorian times, including the famous Meissen workshops.

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Kids Lesson Two of the Nutcracker History from the Nutcracker Museum in Leavenworth

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When you hear the word nutcracker you think of the wood turned nutcracker from Germany-the one you see in nearly every store at Christmas time-the one whose body parts are turned on a lathe--the one with the big teeth and grim expression.But there are many more kinds of nut cracking devices, and many different materials used to make them.So let's investigate.......

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Nuts have been a significant part of the food supply since the beginning of time, and over the years, man has created ingenious ways to open the shells.

Excavations of early civilizations have revealed nutshells that were probably broken by stones when too hard for the teeth to crack. Pitted stones used for cracking nuts have been found in various parts of the United States and Europe and have been dated back to the Archaic Period, 4,000 to 8,000 years ago. These nomadic peoples would camp near the nut trees when it was time for the nuts to fall. Kernels were eaten whole or ground to make flour or nut butters.

The oldest known metal nutcracker dates to the third or fourth century B.C. and is shown in a museum in Tarent, Italy. The Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum shows a bronze Roman nutcracker dated between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D. It was found in 1960 after being buried for over 1800 years.

I ron lever nutcrackers are shown in the Ironworks Museum in Rouen, France with some dating back to the 13th century, and brass nutcrackers are known to have existed in the 14th and 15th century. At first these metal nutcrackers were hand wrought, but in later centuries, hot metals were poured into molds. England became famous for its brass production and produced many nutcracker styles, and the United States was known for its cast iron products.

The first wooden nutcrackers were simply two pieces of wood fastened together by a leather strap or metal hinge. By the 15th and 16th century, wood carvers in France and England were creating beautiful wooden nutcrackers. They used the wood from their locality, but preferred boxwood because of its fine grain and uniform color. Many of these delicately carved nutcrackers can be seen in the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum.

Standing wooden nutcrackers in the form of soldiers and kings were shown in the Sonneberg and Erzgebirge regions of Germany by 1800 and in 1830, the term "Nussknacker" appeared in the dictionary of the Brothers Grim. It was defined as often in the form of a misshaped little man, in whose mouth the nut, by means of a leaver or screw, is cracked open. In 1872 Wilhelm Fuchtner, known as the father of the nutcracker, made the first commercial production of nutcrackers using the lathe to create many of the same design. The Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum shows an 1880 miner of Wilhelm Fuchtner along with a miner presently made in the Fuchtner family workshops.

Few nutcrackers have been produced in fragile materials such as ivory, bone and porcelain that still exist today, but some can be seen in the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum.

Many factors have contributed to the evolution of the nutcracker�s form, functionality and character�.the availability of materials, advances in production techniques, styles of the times, consumer demand, and even changes in the nuts themselves. A study of nutcrackers is a study of history itself as they reflect the cultural values and innovations of the place and time of origin.

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Dogs that are able to be carried at all times may come into the museum. Service animals are always welcome.

Contact Us

735 Front Street
P.O. Box 2212
Leavenworth, WA 98826

(509) 548-4573

MUSEUM HOURS
Daily - Year Around
1:00PM - 5:00PM

Nutcracker Museum Mission Statement:

"To foster and encourage the interest of the general public of the importance of nuts in the diets of humans throughout history and in the evolution of the nutcracker. No other tool or collectible has shown such a wide diversity of material and design as the implements used to crack the hard shell of a nut".

Museum Admission:

Adults - $5.00 (Ages 17 - 64yrs)
Seniors - $3.50 (Age 65yrs +)
Youth - $2.00 (Ages 6 - 16yrs)
Child - FREE (Ages 0 - 5yrs)
Active Military - FREE (Spouse & Children Free with ID)

curator@nutcrackermuseum.com

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Nuts have been a significant part of the food supply since the beginning of time, and over the years, man has created ingenious ways to open the shells. Excavations of early civilizations have revealed nutshells that were probably broken by stones when too hard for the teeth to crack.

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