Walter Bruckner, Austria’s last glass teddy bear eye maker.

Back in 1998, J-Me and I met Walter Bruckner at his home in Kremsmunster, Austria while researching bead factories in Europe. He and his brother Erich were only making Teddy Bear eyes, having stopped making lampwork beads in 1984 due to a decrease in business. He did show us a closet stuffed full of sample cards from his parents bead business dating back to before World War 2 when they all lived in Gablonz, Czechoslavakia, but would not part with any. We were able to purchase a few leftover beads he had in a drawer. Other than the cards, we had no interest in his glass eye production and we left, losing contact with Walter, but not forgetting him.

Then in 2013 we received an email from Walter stating he had read our articles on Jablonec nad Nisou/Gablonz which was where he was from and wanted to know if we had any more information about the area. We had started documenting old Sudeten German bead maker families and businesses before they vanished from the records, and so we started making plans to visit him while in Europe leading our 2014 Button and Bead Tour of Czech Republic to record his story.

When we arrived at his house on Gablonzer Street in Kremsmunster, Austria it looked the same as when we first saw it back in 1998. The street was quiet and clean, the quintessential Austrian small village street scene. The garden was well kept, and a small plaque inserted next to the front door announced “Erich and Walter Bruckner – Glass Eye Manufacturers”.

Walter was expecting us, and met us at the front door. He looked, if anything, younger than when we first met him.

He gave us a tour of his studio and his home, which was half gutted and in partial reconstruction due to a long overdue remodel.

Walter sat at his torch and showed us production of an eye he was creating for a customer’s order.

It was a blue Teddy Bear eye with a black iris. He told us he and his brother had limited their eye making business to Austria and Germany only this past year, voluntarily relinquishing their export license back to the government. As companies were not ordering as many glass eyes to make Teddy Bears, as many companies were now using plastic eyes, so business was slowing down. He said they planned on retiring in about five years, or when orders ceased coming in.

Walter showed us his stash of sample cards his company had created over the years involving glass eyes. Mostly they were animal eyes for taxidermy companies, such as bear, deer, owl, fish….. and then sprinkled in with his were sample cards from other glass eye makers and cabochon makers like Fried Freres out of Paris, France. He had been personal friends with the Fried brothers when they came to Kremsmunster to visit his parents. They too had originated from Gablonz.

Asking about his origins, Walter said he had been born in Gablonz in 1940. His father Bernholdt Bruckner was a lampwork bead maker, with his own small cottage factory in their house at 8 ------------- Street, which was near the old Catholic church in town. By looking at a map of Jablonec we determined that the street is now named Podorsky Street.

In 1945 after the end of the war, with his father missing and later found to be a German prisoner of war held in Bulgaria, his mother, Teresa along with 5 year old Walter and his 8 year old brother Erich were deported from Czechoslavakia to war ravaged Germany and finally settled in Kremsmunster, Austria. By 1947, Bernholdt had been released from the prisoner of war camp in Bulgaria and joined up with his family in Austria. He immediately started up his bead business in the basement of his house, made contact with as many of his old business associates from Gablonz who were scattered all over Germany and started making beads. Bernholdt died in 1952, and Teresa took over the business.

Bernholdt, Teresa and Erich Bruckner – 1938.

Both Erich and Walter learnt the business and bead making from Teresa, but Walter’s first job was making jewelry at a small jewelry design business in town, when he was 18.

Both Erich and Walter worked with their mother at the family business, but by 1984 the bead business was essentially dead, and they switched over full time to eye manufacturing, specializing in animal eyes for taxidermists. Only later did they concentrate solely on Teddy Bear eyes.

Some time after 1989, when the Velvet Revolution ended communism in Czechoslavakia and Czech Republic and Slovak Republic became independent, Walter, Erich and Teresa returned to Jablonec nad Nisou for a visit. Of course, Walter did not remember much, but he did remember his old house. He remembered that they tried to go see it but that the current inhabitants would not let them in. He does not have any other memories of his earlier life there, and does not want to go back.

After living a long life, Teresa died in 2000. She was 94 years old.

When I asked Walter about his closet full of sample cards we had seen back in 1998 he said he still had them but did not know exactly where they were at the moment due to the remodel. He would look for them and let us know. He would also one day let us buy some of his sample cards of eyes, but only after he has retired. One of his sample briefcases was full of sample cards he would carry around Europe when on business trips to solicit business, cards full of animal eyes and doll eyes.

In his second floor spare bedroom Walter houses his doll and Teddy Bear collection, the earliest going back to 1942, his own Teddy Bear when he was a child. Most, if not all of them were given to him in exchange for glass eyes he made for the producers of the dolls and bears when they couldn’t afford to pay the bill for the eyes he made.

After we left Walter, we traveled back through Czech Republic to Ceske Krumlov, where his mother Teresa was born. In an antique shop there we found a pair of doll eyes mounted on a wire frame for positioning inside a doll head. The shop owner said they were old glass doll eyes from Austria. Yep, that would be Walter Bruckner!

When Walter and Erich Bruckner retire, so too will glass Teddy Bear eyes. All that will be left will be plastic eyes, made in China.

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J-Me and Guy are the owners of Wild Things Beads; a small family run import business specializing in Czech glass beads and buttons. They also run working button and bead tours to Jablonec and Hong Kong. Their warehouse is located deep in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California, and can be reached by phone at (530) 743 1339 or on the web at www.wildthingsbeads.com. They are also open by appointment at their warehouse