Contact Admin. O n the edge of deep green mountain forests in the centre of Germany — where east once met west — lies Germany's "toy town". As in every corner of Germany right now, smiling election candidates beam out from posters tied to lampposts in Sonneberg with snappy slogans promising "safe jobs" and to "keep Germany strong".
There is little mention of looming problems that many experts predict will send Germany tumbling down the economic league tables over coming years. Instead, they are playing on the strengths of Sonneberg's mix of small and family-owned companies — the kind that dominate the buoyant German business landscape.
Toy town is, for now, enjoying the latest of many resurgences through the centuries. In its heyday at the turn of the 20th century, Sonneberg was the world's leading toy producer. Mothers and fathers, son and daughters, crammed into home workshops and, with their neighbours, made up production lines that churned out every fifth toy in the world. One house would make dolls' wigs, the next along stuffed the bodies and another would craft their faces. Little of that is left today.
Rows of majestic villas and teddy-bear-shaped statues in the town square are testament to centuries of export might, but only a handful of toymakers remain. You have to accept it. The world is changing. But in the place of Sonneberg's toymakers are industrial estates almost full to capacity with car parts manufacturers, mechanical engineering plants and plastics specialists.
Sonneberg, and its transformation after the fall of the Berlin wall into a base for such Mittelstand small and medium-sized companies, encapsulates the wave of economic success that chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking to ride into the elections in two weeks' time.
