How one Germany factory makes more than 1.5 million Christmas ornaments a year
The Inge-Glas company is one of the oldest in the world still making Christmas ornaments the traditional way. It was once
one of over 1,500 manufacturers in this part of eastern Germany, blowing glass ornaments and painting them by hand. But today, most Christmas decorations are mass-produced in China.
one of over 1,500 manufacturers in this part of eastern Germany, blowing glass ornaments and painting them by hand. But today, most Christmas decorations are mass-produced in China.
Transcript
00:00 The Inge Glass Company in Germany is one of the oldest in the world, still making
00:06 Christmas ornaments the traditional way. Blowing glass and painting them by hand.
00:13 Every single creation is coated from the inside first with real silver.
00:20 We're 15 generations of glass making.
00:23 There were once over 1,500 manufacturers in this part of Eastern Germany,
00:28 making it the glass ornament capital of the world. Even Queen Victoria was a
00:35 client. But today many Christmas decorations are made of plastic and 87%
00:42 are mass-produced in China. Germany makes less than 1%. So how did this family
00:50 business with a secret sparkle manage to survive while hundreds went out of
00:55 business? We went to Germany to see how this iconic craft is still standing.
01:04 Every new Christmas ornament starts life as a drawing. A design like this can
01:11 take up to six hours. Chris Henkel then spends a week bringing it to life in the
01:17 form of a clay figure. And he's the only one at the company doing this job.
01:24 All the tools I use, but most of all what's A and O, are my hands.
01:29 In every figure there's a little bit of me.
01:34 This method of blow-molding ornaments hasn't changed for nearly 200 years.
01:44 Matthias Fiebig first heats a glass tube to 800 degrees Celsius. He then places it
01:51 in a mold and starts blowing. He has only seconds to work before it cools down and hardens.
01:59 Too much air can make the glass thin and fragile. Too little will
02:12 make it thick and it won't fill up the mold. Some shapes, like the classic
02:17 bauble, don't need a mold. Nowadays Matthias can make around 450 ornaments a day.
02:25 Matthias says learning new shapes can still be a challenge.
02:37 Every year we add new ornaments. It's always a challenge to master them.
02:48 The glass ornaments are now ready to take on the colours of Christmas.
02:53 Workers start by coating the inside with a solution of silver nitrate. They swirl the
03:00 liquid around to make sure it's evenly coated. Then dip it in hot water which
03:06 will trigger a chemical reaction that makes the silver stick to the glass.
03:14 This inner coating is what gives the ornaments their silver mirror effect.
03:22 They are washed with cold water and left to dry for one hour. Then it's time to add
03:31 colour to the outside. The glass creations are transformed into Inger Glas'
03:37 classic red bauble and into these mini pickles and yellow lemons. The coat is
03:47 thin enough to allow the mirroring from the silver to still shine through.
03:52 The warm air actually comes straight from gas burners used by the glassblowers.
04:06 Inger Glas makes 1.5 million ornaments every year. Some decorations get a
04:16 layer of spray paint and they have over 100 colours to choose from. The most
04:22 popular are red, gold and silver. Once they're dry it's time for the next paint
04:30 layer. Stephanie Greinobroom is one of the 15 full-time painters. She's been
04:38 working here for 20 years and can paint as many as 110 ornaments in a day.
04:45 Most of the ornaments here are painted by hand. They are left to dry for 20 minutes.
04:59 And this is the final touch - a star-shaped crown.
05:05 Steffi Schneider checks every piece one last time to make sure it's ready for
05:18 shipping. Some decorations get a final flourish like feathers.
05:24 Inger Glas has been making birds like this since the factory
05:35 opened. At the time each glass factory in town had its own signature ornament.
05:44 The company sells around 900 different Christmas decorations but it has an
05:49 archive of 15,000 to fall back on. Most of them are stored in this vault and the
05:57 collection keeps growing. Every year we have about 100 new molds. Marie Moulleblech
06:06 is the 15th generation of her family to work in the glassmaking business.
06:11 Growing up in a company and a family of glassblowers was very colourful. I did
06:18 more drawing on glass bowls than on paper. In 1597 one of their ancestors
06:26 helped found the town of Lauscha which became known for its glasswork. Back then
06:32 people across Germany decorated Christmas trees with apples, nuts and
06:37 candles. The first glass ornaments were made in 1847 by an artisan in Lauscha.
06:44 At the time Europe was going through a devastating food crisis. Food was
06:50 expensive so what he did was he just build it out of glass. In 1848 Queen
06:58 Victoria brought a Christmas tree to Windsor Castle and adorned it with
07:02 ornaments from Lauscha and the trend grew. By 1925 glass ornaments became the
07:09 town's biggest industry with over 1,500 businesses. But everything came to a halt
07:15 after World War II. The Soviet authorities who took control of what
07:20 would become East Germany put a stop to all glass ornament production and Lauscha
07:26 found itself on the wrong side of the border. Many glassmakers including
07:31 Marie's paternal grandfather fled to the West. They started with glass blowing in
07:38 their own house in the basement. He opened Inge Glass with his wife in 1953
07:43 in Neustadt by Korberg. When my grandfather Heinz Müller-Blich came to West Germany
07:49 here in Neustadt he wasn't able to bring that much things with him actually
07:56 nothing. Meanwhile production flourished abroad. In the United States the glass
08:03 ribbon machine allowed a factory to blow up to 300,000 glass ornaments a day. And
08:09 in the 1950s more durable plastic ornaments began to replace glass ones.
08:15 Production became so fast and cheap that many German ornament makers could not
08:21 compete. By 2021 87% of Christmas decorations were made in China while
08:29 less than 1% were made in Germany. The consuming changed and like hand-blown
08:37 hand-painted wasn't that important anymore. Inge Glass is one of the few
08:41 businesses here that managed to survive. But it couldn't make it on tradition
08:47 alone. So in the 1990s Marie's parents decided that if they couldn't beat the
08:54 competition they'd have to join them. My father thought about other possibilities
09:00 of how this handicraft can go into future and the only possibility he found
09:07 was to get to know the Chinese market better and to learn about the industrial
09:15 making of glass ornaments. They started producing a line of cheaper
09:21 machine-made glass and plastic ornaments to help keep the business afloat. Peak
09:27 season of course is in summer actually because then we have to produce
09:32 everything for Christmas and everything has to be sent to the customers in time.
09:38 Nowadays they sell to retailers and department stores in 40 countries.
09:44 Outside of Europe their biggest market is the US.
09:50 They even have stores throughout Germany. Their cheapest glass ornaments are $8 a piece.
09:57 The priciest go for $100 like the Nikolaus Prepares.
10:05 Marie says she's inspired by her family's story and the way they made the
10:11 glass.
10:14 It's just what my heart beats for and it's my passion and I can't imagine to stop with it.
10:22 It's just what my heart beats for and it's my passion and I can't imagine to stop with it.
10:32 [Music]