When I first moved to Fürth, in 1987, I lived in a new flat in the south part of the town. Our landlord was Hans Beck, who was famous as the inventor of Playmobil toys. He didn’t, as far as I know, own other flats. He was always very pleasant to deal with, on the few occasions we had any contact with him. He died recently, and I nearly blogged it, but only now have I realized that his obituary has appeared in English in so many papers: the New York Times, the Times, the Independent (the one I saw today) and many others. It’s also been widely blogged.