Happy Birthday, Augsburger Puppenkiste

On February 26th 1948 the Augsburger Puppenkiste opened with the “Puss in Boots”. Amounts of children in and around Augsburg came to watch it. It didn’t take long until the German Television became interested.
During the war soldier Walter Oehmichen had the idea to entertain his comrads with puppet theatre. Back in Germany the former actor built a portable puppet shrine for kids an injured veterans. But this first ‘Puppenkiste’ (Puppetbox) has been destroyed in a bombardment and Oehmicher was send back to the frontier. Being injured he learned how to carve and his first puppet was done, the beginning of the “Augsburger Puppenkiste” that started after the war.
In the 50ies the German TV broadcasted “Peter and the Wolf”. In the 60ies and 70ies “Jim Knopf” and “Urmel” followed.
Although the presence on television reduced lately, the theatre has more than 400 shows per year.