Nutcracker

A nutcracker is a tool for opening or nuts to crack the nut shells. Nutcracker are available in various sizes and designs.

Nutcracker types

Functional Nutcracker

• Nutcracker consist of two pincer-like arms which are connected to each other via a hinge. The nut is placed between the arms, they are then compressed, so that the nut shell is blown up.
• Schraubnussknacker consist of two parts, a type of tray in which the follower is put into it, and a lid or in a rotatable screw in the shell. When slowly screwing the nut shell is destroyed.
• When you spin the nut nutcracker is inserted into a balloon, which is clamped in a metal cylinder. Then this is pulled back and released, the nut smashed against the opposite wall of the metal nutcracker.

Besides these main forms exist numerous other embodiments in which the nut to be cracked by pressure or impact on the pan. So the Nutcracker of Drosselmeyer is a metal cup the abutment. A lever mechanism, the movement of the handle is transmitted to a spring-loaded metal plate, which compresses the nut in the cup. The leverage effect is the force required to nut-cracking force is reduced. Another type consists of a rubber bell with centrally inserted, grooved metal strike plate that is mounted on a metal base. A blow with the hand on the rubber bell breaks the nut which was placed in a recess in the metal floor.

Cup-shaped nutcracker with lever mechanism

Functional Nutcracker

Decorative Nutcracker

• Nutcracker wooden figures, in their "mouth" can crack the nuts by a lever technique. These pieces are set up especially during the Christmas season as a decoration. They are made .. The often grim look of this Nutcracker faces similar to the former government ( Förster, gendarme, King, Husar, etc.) since the first half of the 19th century, especially in the Erzgebirge with the center in Seiffen / Erzgeb. A 35 cm large Nutcracker this type is produced in about 130 operations and can contain up to 60 individual parts. It is mainly processed spruce or beech wood, and for decorating materials such as fur, bristles, leather, fabric, twine and bright colorful colors are used.
• Giant Nutcracker be placed as decorative elements on Christmas markets. The largest known Nutcracker at Christmas markets is 6,20 m tall and is located on the Osnabrück Christmas Market. As the largest Nutcracker in the world applies the 10.10 m high and 3285 kg heavy knight Borso of giant castle,. Before the Nutcracker Museum in Neuhausen / Erzgeb stands.

History

The first Nutcracker, consisting of two lever arms, there was already in antiquity. Its invention is attributed to Aristotle. An already quite decorative model in bronze dating from around 300 BC, was found in a grave at Taranto. The lower layers, which did not have such a device, use either a stone, a hammer or their teeth. Even Leonardo da Vinci is said to have fiddled on a device for cracking nuts. He developed in any case a lathe for turning wooden figures. So it was in the 16th century proved figurative Nutcracker. King Henry VIII of England gave his second wife Anne Boleyn an ornately carved geezer. Jacob Grimm in this connection that Nußknackerfiguren have evolved from idols to appease the spirits home.

The heyday of the ornate wood -cracking figures began in the 18th century when they were first carved in Val Gardena and in Oberammergau. In South Tyrol were V.A. funny guys from the people made ​​in Bavaria oriental figures.

After 1800 people sought especially in the so -called toy angle between the Erzgebirge Seiffen, Olbernhau and Neuhausen / Erzgeb. after the cessation of mining for new sources of income, and so we moved mainly on turning. In addition to other decorative items such as chairs, furniture here especially wooden toys, mannequins like Angel and Miner, Arches, smoking and Nutcracker were manufactured. Among the most popular figures of the " lever Men" were gendarmes, soldiers or kings. The first nutcracker in the shape and color known today Erzgebirge drechselte Friedrich Wilhelm Füchtner around 1870. Die Gestalten with the huge mouth should command respect. Also Nutcracker were made partly as caricatures. For example, Napoleon was shown after the Battle of Leipzig as a nutcracker, and later Bismarck.

The colorfully painted figures found naturally in children appeal; they were sold at the Christmas markets and were in the 19th century as a children 's toy. But the functional Nutcracker was discovered by designers such as during the period of Art Nouveau. The products manufactured today decorative figures, which are also collector's items, most have no more cracking function.

Nutcracker in the literature and on the stage

Literary fame gained by the Nutcracker Nutcracker and the Mouse King, the Christmas story, the ETA Hoffmann wrote in 1816. The figure was a hussar, "He was a very nice, shiny violet hussar jacket with lots of white cords and knobs to put these trousers and the most beautiful little boots that have ever come to the feet of an officer. "

Not quite so well known is a Christmas story of Struwwelpeter author Heinrich Hoffmann, which he wrote in 1851 under the title King Nutcracker and the Poor Reinhold. The figures from the Erzgebirge that occur in this book and were drawn by him, Hoffmann had previously bought as visual objects especially at the Christmas market in Nuremberg. The title character is a proud king, who introduces himself with the words: "King Nutcracker, so hot I, teasers, the zerbeiß ' I. Sweet cores swallow ' I diligently, but the shells, egg, throw the ' I prefer another way, because I am king. "History also contains a parody of the national anthem of the emperor, the temporary publication ban earned the plant.

The ballet The Nutcracker by Pyotr Tchaikovsky had on 6 Dezemberjul. / December 18 1892greg. in Saint Petersburg premiere. The literary model is again E.T.A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker and Mouse King. He had written the composition, however, some years before.