Postcard from Bavaria: a bleak midwinter for the ‘Christmas city’

There can be few more perfect settings for Christmas shopping than Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a small Franconian town about 85 miles south-east of Frankfurt. When the lights twinkle on the half-timbered houses, good cheer echoes across the medieval cobbles of Market Square and snow dusts the red-tiled towers above the city gates, it is hard not to believe that all is well with the world. Even the migratory storks resting on the roof ridges seem to peer shortsightedly down at the revellers with a kind of benevolence, before shuffling off for warmer climes.

This year, though, there are clouds on the horizon. The pandemic has led to the cancellation of the 500-year-old Christmas market for the second year in a row. Moreover, Rothenburg is the headquarters of a business that promotes Christmas around the world, all year round, and two years of diminished festivities — not to mention no Chinese, Japanese or American tourists in town — have brought difficult times to their front door.

That business is Käthe Wohlfahrt, one of the world’s largest Christmas retailers, with some 360 staff, most of them based here. Besides its corporate offices and design studios, it has four outlets and a year-round Christmas museum in Rothenburg, plus several more shops in other key German cities as well as in the US, Spain, France and the UK.

When I push open the front door of the flagship store on Herrngasse, I find just one other couple wandering around the glittery, labyrinthine Christmas village hidden inside. Crying out for our attention are a mesmerising 25,000 product lines, with a centrepiece giant Christmas tree in a roofed courtyard between conjoined houses. Alongside all the usual baubles and reindeer there are quantities of ornaments with a more tangential Christmas connection: a pair of sparkly stilettos and some dangly doughnuts; a baby monkey fashioned from lurid glass, and a whole shelf full of “rabbit friends”.

There were blips, of course, with the 9/11 attacks and the Gulf war, which kept international visitors away, but nothing has been as bad as Covid

Of course, being German, the spiritual home of so many things Christmassy, the company has a special place for its more iconic pieces. Its museum, above the shop, has a collection of typical wooden angels and nutcrackers, those highly painted military-style men with levers between their shoulder blades. It has typical smokeys — incense-burning figurines — and Schwibbogen lighting arches, which appear in many a window at Christmas time. It also has a variety of pyramids, the modest versions topped by rotating fans powered by hot air rising from candles.

Most of these pieces originate from the mining and woodcarving communities of the Erzgebirge mountains, south of Dresden, in the former East Germany. This was also the original home of the founding couple, Wilhelm and Käthe Wohlfahrt, who fled to West Germany in the 1950s, bringing with them a typical wooden music box made by Erzgebirge craftsmen.

One year, that music box was so much admired by an American officer they had invited to their home for Christmas, that Wilhelm sourced some more for the officer’s colleagues. From their response, he realised that he’d stumbled across a huge potential market, and Käthe Wohlfahrt was born.

Thereafter the business grew steadily, adding shop after shop, participating in more and more Christmas markets. There were blips, of course, with the 9/11 attacks and the Gulf war, which kept international visitors away, but nothing has been as bad as Covid.

Careful restructuring, the closure of six of the German shops and shedding 20 staff has brought the company back from the brink of bankruptcy, says spokeswoman Felicitas Höptner. Reducing stock, limiting advertising and concentrating on online sales has restored some financial stability. But online sales are still only 8-10 per cent of turnover, so it is footfall to Christmas markets, and the return of international travellers to popular German destinations such as Rothenburg, that will finally right the ship.

Accordingly, the last-minute cancellation of Rothenburg market, when the festive booths were already filling up Market Square, was a significant blow. But some of the German markets outside Bavaria, and those elsewhere in Europe, are keeping the faith, and Käthe Wohlfahrt will also be present at seven in the US and three in Japan.

“These last two years have been like a rollercoaster ride for the town,” says Robert Nehr, a spokesman for the local tourist board. A third of the town’s income comes from tourism but so far only one hotel has gone into insolvency and residents are striving to stay upbeat.

The authorities have organised a ‘fairy tale stroll’, a sort of treasure hunt through the old town

The town is decorated with fir trees and Christmas lights, restaurants and hotels remain open, and the tourist board is pitching the idea that, rather than simply focusing on the Market Square, visitors will come to relish the festive atmosphere throughout what they are billing as the Weihnachtsstadt, the “Christmas City”.

The authorities have organised a “fairy tale stroll”, a sort of treasure hunt through the old town, there are organ recitals in the church of St Jakob, while mulled wine, punch, hot buttered waffles and Bratwurstweckles (sausages in buns) are being served on the terraces and inner courtyards of cafés and restaurants.

“Nothing in the world, not even the fourth resurgence of the Covid-19 virus, can wipe out the Christmas spirit that reigns 365 days a year in Rothenburg ob der Tauber,” the tourist board says. So there’s hope and defiance mixed in with the aromas of finely seasoned gingerbread and hot spiced wine this year, hope that Christmas — and the Christmas city — can be saved.

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