Hänneschen-Theater

This guide to the Hänneschen-Theater in Cologne follows a house rule now over two hundred years old: no puppeteer working behind the stage's low wooden wall may stand taller than about five foot ten, so the audience never glimpses a human hand. It traces the tailor Johann Christoph Winters, who staged a nativity play here in 1802 out of financial need and invented the puppet Tünnes within a year, and the family and city hands who kept the show running after his death. You'll hear how the theater was destroyed during the war and what it took to bring Tünnes and his rival Schäl back to the stage. Watch the Britz, the low wooden wall, and see if you can catch anyone ducking behind it.