Out for the popular Munich traditional business: doll dad packs up
Created: 01/19/2022, 09:54
By: Klaus Vick
Gunnar Schweizer is closing his shop on Maxburgstrasse in Munich.
© Achim Schmidt/tz
Munich loses its Wunderwelt shop with miniature replicas.
Bureaucratic requirements and the corona pandemic have persuaded the owner Gunnar Schweizer to stop.
Munich – Does he have a favorite character in his range?
Gunnar Schweizer thinks for a moment.
Then he says: "I don't sell anything that I don't like myself." Schweizer's shop on Maxburgstraße is a small wonderland of miniature replicas: doll's houses, tin toys, pewter figures, music boxes or Christmas decorations - every single piece is made with great attention to detail.
Gunnar Schweizer is in his element here in this picturesque cabinet of curiosities.
With his bushy white beard he looks a bit like Santa Claus.
But soon the 59-year-old packs his things.
Gunnar Schweizer will close the shop by the end of February at the latest.
And another traditional owner-managed business* in the city center is disappearing.
Miniaturen-Shop: The company history goes back to 1796
The company history goes back a long way.
In 1796, Adam Schweizer founded a pewter foundry in Dießen am Ammersee.
In addition to pewter crockery, he mainly produced devotional items that were sold at pilgrimage sites throughout Europe.
The Schweizers are an institution in Dießen.
The production facilities, two shops and a toy museum are still located there.
The Munich dollhouse and tin figure cabinet has to close.
© Achim Schmidt/tz
Because there were many customers from Munich, Gunnar Schweizer's mother Ilse Schweizer opened a shop here in 1981.
The son has continued it with his wife Ursula since 2004.
Schweizer learned the pewter trade himself.
"It's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun." Schweizer would have liked to hand over his business to a successor.
But it is not that simple.
Bureaucracy and the corona pandemic were too much
The property belongs to the Free State.
He would have to advertise the property when it was re-let.
"An unbureaucratic handover is complicated," he says.
Which deterred potential buyers.
Especially given the signs of the Corona crisis.
For him too, the effects of the pandemic were the "icing on the cake" that made him quit.
In addition, the daily drive from his hometown of Dießen to Munich.
Gunnar and Ursula Schweizer will soon be opening their shop* for the last time.
"It will take some time before we get used to it," says the 59-year-old.
A little melancholy sounds through.
Queues formed in front of the store on Maxburgstrasse on Monday.
*tz.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
