When we first arrived in Berlin the cute symbols used for the pedestrian lights really stuck out as they did not seem very urban or Germanic.
As we travelled around we noticed that in other areas the symbols were different (below) and more like what you would expect to see in any modern city.
Then we started seeing the little green man on backpacks and he is even on coffee mugs in our apartment.
With a little bit of “Binging” (which is like Googling but better) the mystery was solved.
Turns out that the green hat man (Ampelmännchen or literally Traffic Light Man) is a throw back to the East Germans. They introduced this guy and his red friend in 1961. They were designed by a guy called Karl Peglau who theorised that people would respond better if friendly characters were used. They were a hit and were bought to life in series of animated TV commercials and films to teach East German children road safety.
After the wall went down the West Germans wanted to standardize so they started to systematically replace GHM (Green Hat Man) with their own man.
Seems there was a great deal of emotional attachment to GHM and he became the mascot for the East German nostalgia movement (obviously there were some nice aspects to living under a communist regime. I just would not have picked traffic lights as one of them)
The nostalgia movement (Ostalgie) staged protests over the years and in 2005 were successful in getting GHM back on all the traffic lights in Berlin – including the west!
GHM won the battle of the little green men.
Today Green Hat man even has his own store. We are heading off there next week – i really want a lamp.
Hello Kurty goes to Egypt 