Playmobil got in trouble a few years ago when they produced the Mountie figure, without first checking with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It turned out that the RCMP had sold their image to Disney some years earlier, and that Playmobil had no right to use the image for their figure. I don't know if they got financially stung, but it was an embarrassment to them, and made them wary.
While I think it is a little sad to "sell out" to Disney in this way, I realise that organisations have the right to market their uniforms, brands and images, built up over a number of years, to make a bit of extra money. Playmobil should have contacted the RCMP to clear their figure, and would have to do so with any other civil or military organisations whose uniforms they wanted to reproduce. They generally dislike doing this for their own reasons, and so they produce figures which are different enough to escape censure, and similar enough to be mistaken for the correct uniform.
The production of the DHL man with van, and the German rescue service whose initials I forget right now, show that they will and do sometimes produce close copies of real world organisation uniforms and vehicles by arrangement.
On a personal level I think Playmobil are insane NOT to bite the license bullet and get their product better known through producing one-off figures as suggested by Heronimus. They may have to give a percentage of the profits from those particular figures back to the licenser, but it would get the product in front of a wider audience, boosting sales of the rest of their range.
Herr Brandstatter may by blocking this move, which is either a good or bad decision depending on your point of view. It enables children (of all ages) to use more imagination in their play, and prevents the influx of "Twilight" and "Harry Potter" themes, a very good thing and in keeping with the original concept of Playmobil. It probably cuts down on potential profit for the Geobra company, but if profit is not your prime concern then why sacrifice your integrity?
