It was Christmas 1905 when Käthe Kruse´s daughter Maria, also called "Mimerle", asked for a doll as a Christmas present. She longed for a doll she could hug and cuddle and care for, a doll like a real baby. 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. At that time, she never would have dreamt that this was the beginning of a world wide carreer!
In the mid-60s Hanne Kruse took the decisive step to enlarge the doll production by making toys for babies and toddlers. At that time, the doll market was dangerously stagnant. Consumers preferred buying cheaper products from overseas. With her terry cloth dolls and animals Hanne Kruse won a new consumer group and thus, saved the company. Among her soft and colorful terry cloth products were animals, play balls and a new doll family called "The Timmermans". Some of these cloth products are still made today!
The first doll was created in 1905. Just like this first doll had conquered the heart of Käthe Kruse´s daughter Maria, the Käthe Kruse dolls of today conquer the hearts of generations of people all over the world.
Official website：https://www.kaethe-kruse.de/en/