A solemn moment has passed over the otherwise joyous atmosphere of childhood playtime: Horst Brandstaetter, the billionaire founder of toy-maker Playmobil, died last week. He was 81.
Playmobil, which sells Lego-esque toys in thematic kits, has become one of the largest toy companies in the world. With nearly $700 million in revenue, Playmobil ranks only behind Lego,
While famous now for its two-and-three-quarters inch toys with inviting smiles and posable limbs, Playmobil began as a manufacturer of something much more somber. In 1876, a Brandstaetter ancestor founded the firm in Furth, Germany—then Bavaria—as a producer of ornamental casket fittings and locks. The company stayed within the clan, and later family members expanded to sheet-metal piggy banks, telephones and cash registers, which they sold in Europe and abroad.
Horst Brandstaetter entered the corporate picture in 1952 at 19 years old, joining his two uncles who were running the company. He found the atmosphere stifling and pressed for the aging business to think about entering new markets, according to Playmobil. His forward thinking paid off in 1958, when the company brought the hula hoop to Europe.
The oil crisis of the 1970s made plastic scarce, and Brandstaetter asked a top lieutenant to develop a new toy that wouldn’t require much of it. Together, they dreamed up the little figurines that now define Playmobil, ones made with hollow body parts that helped fulfill the need to use less plastic. A series of helmeted knights, Native American warriors in long headdresses and construction workers hit toy store shelves in 1974. They were not an immediate success, but they caught on—saving Playmobil from bankruptcy. "People seeing the Playmobil figure for the first time are usually unimpressed. It looks so simple," Brandstaetter would later recall. "Adults don’t immediately see the value of Playmobil. Its appeal is in the stories which it triggers in children’s heads."
As Playmobil discovered in its expansion in the 1980s, those narratives appealed not only to kids in Germany but also to ones across Europe, Canada and America. Some 2.8 billion of its toys have been made, according to the company, most from the same factory in Germany commissioned by Playmobil in 1969. Today the site can churn out 10 million individual hands, legs and heads using injection molding.
Brandstaetter stepped down from running Playmobil in 2000, though remained a daily presence at the office right until his death, the company says. Perhaps the greatest marker of his success is Playmobil's expansive catalog, far thicker today than in its 1974 debut. Knights and construction workers, yes, but it is a boundless universe of zoo animals, pirates, dragons, cowboys, fairies—even a miniature, plastic manger scene, no assembly required.
