{"id":246,"date":"2012-01-03T20:05:32","date_gmt":"2012-01-03T20:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thisbloglife.com\/?p=246"},"modified":"2026-01-08T20:28:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:28:53","slug":"walk-dont-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thatkeith.com\/articles\/walk-dont-walk\/","title":{"rendered":"Walk, Don\u2019t Walk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The curious life and times of Ampelm\u00e4nnchen.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m in Berlin as I write this, and I\u2019ve noticed something curious about the pedestrian crossing signals here; there are two distinctly different kinds in this city. Both are the expected red and green silhouette variety, but the ones in what was the GDR-controlled East Berlin are curiously more personable than the more generic kind found in most of West Berlin. A little digging and asking around turned up a huge amount of fascinating detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

East Berlin Ampelmannchen Stop<\/th>East Berlin Ampelmannchen Go<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/td>
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
West German Ampelmannchen Stop<\/th>West German Ampelmannchen Go<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/td>
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The name of this character is \u201cAmpelm\u00e4nnchen\u201d, which means \u201clittle traffic light man\u201d. Strictly speaking this is the generic German term for any pedestrian crossing character, but it is often used to refer specifically to the East German design. This was introduced in 1961 \u2013 October 13th to be precise \u2013 as part of a proposal for redesigning traffic lights. The man behind it, Karl Peglau, was a traffic psychologist rather than a designer. His main idea was to redesign the shapes of the regular traffic light signals themselves, using a horizontal bar for Stop and a vertical bar with a point for Go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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