underneath there is a (free) english translation (i can't understand a word of german) of what it's said in the article.
i hesitated in posting this article here.
when i called it "worse" before i meant to say that this is not a nice article in 2 ways:
- it is written in a rather "sensationalistic" tone (there's an angel and a devil)
- and its content is not a pleasant one to read.
maybe it only deepens the depression that hans beck's death caused in many of us.
but it also can help us to see things as they really are.
i confess that, after reading the article, it was very difficult to send my condolence to hans beck's family using the geobra/playmobil.de site.
after reading it i decided to "visit" my pirate klickies and kind of recovered my smile again.
"From our editor Michael Heschler
Controversy around the money
Playmobil brings little luck to its inventor
MARKDORF - Hans Beck, Playmobil’s inventor, actually wanted to enjoy his old age at Lake Constance but he can´t find peace.
The 79 years old is looking for recognition on his work but his ex-company and ex-boss refuse to do so.
Up untill now this is as far as Playmobil goes: they send its inventor a bouquet on his birthday and on Christmas.
Nowadays nothing else connects Hans Beck and the toy giant.
Disturbed, the inventor retired himself from the company in 1998.
He lives in an ordinary house in Markdorf’s Gehrenberg montain, a city nobody notices.
Horst Brandstätter, Playmobil’s sole owner, wintered in a mansion in worldly Florida, that has - it is said - a fancy swivelling living room surrounded by windows, with Golf-pro Tiger Woods as a close by neighbour.
On Hans Beck house the rusty pipes demand replacement and the Playmobil inventor is forced to do a lot of math not to stretch his budget.
Arthrosis weakens is right leg making the 79 years walk in pain, his health diminished.
It is difficult for him to witness the little appreciation Brandstätter company gives him, despite its world success.
Horst Brandstätter, the current Mister Playmobil, is unaware of this feeling.
At the Zirndorf headquartes, where they unroll the red carpet for him, he has a highly-decorated office with the Order of Merit granted by the municipality in recognition for his services.
The fact that Brandstätter has to owe fame and wealth to its inventor is increasingly disappearing.
The history of Playmobil goes like this: before going away in a business trip that lasted for several weeks, in 1971, toy maker Brandstätter left an order to his “Sample Maker”, as it was called then.
“You have to make something looking just like Lego, and I promise you an extra 500 marks” he said to his product developer.
Beck did not want to copy their components and, instead, he presented a him human figure “not very changeable, but lookin friendly and capable of being produced in large numbers”.
How did the boss react when the prototypes were finished?
“He didn’t show a lot of enthusiasm. But, at least, he didn’t forbid me to continue”.
Beck made another, and continued to do some different ones.
From an yellowed cardboard box he takes out a king.
A silver crown, red and white vests and a friendly face.
One of the first Playmobil figures.
The body was made of plastic, the beatles-bowlcut-style hair was made from poured synthetyc resin.
The face, as we know it - friendly, likeable.
“It still looks well made”, Beck concludes.
At this point the old Mr. Beck gets lost in his work.
In his development room the same happened.
That was its realm.
In there Beck was the king.
In there he forgot his boss’s humiliations .
At first Brandstätter wanted Beck to cut on the design content, because the process was lost against a competitor.
Afterwards the Boss decided to reinforce his management, imposing a supervisor on his developer, something Beck regarded as a breach of trust.
As the years went by, both had hardly nothing to say to each other.
The lawyers, on the other hand, had a lot to say.
The company does not want to comment any further than this. “It was a 40 years cooperation always based on trust and always thouhtful” Playmobil declares in a short statement.
Adenauer, Beck and Beethoven
Naturally it has to do with money.
Beck could not afford the assintance of lawyers that would keep this fight going.
Brandstätter paid only what he had to pay.
Up untill the expiring of the patents a legally prescribed sum.
This amounted, according to firm sources, to several million German Marks.
Beck contradicts this: “I had a very low salary. No company cars. No extras”.
Nothing compared with what Brandstätter earned with his invention, says Beck.
The man lives in modest conditions.
According to his own information he just receives a small pension.
Money does not concern him any longer, this fight it lost.
What concerns him is his pride.
“And that Mr. Brandstätter can’t take away from me” - the 79 years old says with satisfaction.
He speaks with admiration of an exhibition about the most famous Germans in Hanover’s EXPO.
His bust was presented between Adenauer’s and Beeethoven’s “In alphabetic order” he adds modestly.
We have to admire this meticulous man and understand his indignation.
If lies are written about him, the “Sample Maker” resents it.
Recently the Foreign Office Ministry felt this.
On its homepage the Ministry publishes news bulletin about Germany.
On The 75. Birthday of Playmobil’s owner a message was published by the editors.
Beck decided to intervene with a correction.
It was untrue that the idea of the plastic figure was devised together by Mr. Brandstätter and the chief designer Hans Beck.
“The truth is that the “Sample Maker”, in 1971, devised the design alone”, he wrote to a group of frightened journalists.
On his last working, in 1998, the inventor got an envelope with 2000 German Marks.
“That could be a way to get rid of a gardener but not the way do deal with someone that has mede you rich”, grumble Beck’s wife.
Since then there was only silence the manufacturer and the man who made him rich.
Up untill the bouquet for Christmas and for his birthday.
In a glance
The Company is today an empire
What began with a knight, an indian and a construction worker grew to an empire.
The company “Geobra Brandstätter” sold more than two billion figures.
In 2007 the Playmobil’s turnover rised to 427 million euros and the company has been for many year the leading German toys’ manufactures by far.
Playmobil world-wide employs around 3000 workers.
The plastic figures are all made in Malta, and developed at the company’s headquarters in Franconia, in Zirndörf, near the city of Fürth."
