Käthe Kruse

Käthe Kruse, born Katharina Simon (17 September 1883 in Breslau – 19 July 1968 in Murnau am Staffelsee) was a notable pioneer of German doll-making and went on to establish manufactoring principles which persist to this day. Her original dolls remain very collectible due to their realism and durability, and fetch high prices from collectors.

She was the love child of Breslau's Chief Accountant, Robert Rogaske, and seamstress Christiane Simon and grew up in very modest circumstances, even though her father did continue to visit and provide some support. After graduating from the public schools, she took acting classes and obtained a position at Berlin's Lessing Theater in 1900. She was also quite successful in other German cities and gave performances in Warsaw and Moscow as well under the stage name "Hedda Somin". In 1902, she met the sculptor and occasional set designer Max Kruse and became his mistress. Kruse had four children from a previous marriage, and went on to have eight children together. She began to make dolls for her own kids because Max Kruse thought the mass-manufactured ones were "hideous" and refused to buy them.

By 1909, they had three daughters of their own and decided to get married. The following year, her dolls were first publicly displayed at the Warenhaus Tietz (a department store chain founded by Hermann Tietz). They proved to be popular, so she began taking individual orders. The dolls were very simple at first, but later became much more lifelike. As she perfected her production methods, she began to model the dolls after her own children. Their naturalness (in comparison with the commercial variety) soon made her famous.

Two orders from the United States (the first for 150 dolls, the second for over 500) required her to establish a workshop with a large staff. In 1912, the family moved from Berlin to Bad Kösen, where the dolls continued to be handmade, despite the large number of orders. By 1925, counterfeit copies of her dolls were being made and she won her first copyright suit. Her company began to manufacture mannequins in 1934. Three years later she exhibited at the Paris Expo. Being generally uninterested in politics (except as it affected business), she placed her dolls together with figures of soldiers and welcomed Hjalmar Schacht to the German Pavilion. She also maintained contact with Jewish friends who had emigrated and refused to dismiss "Half-Jewish" employees.

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