&lt;div class=&quot;track&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/44000?ns=guardian&amp;pageName=Hats+off+to+Ampelmannchen%2C+50+today%3AArticle%3A1647368&amp;ch=World+news&amp;c3=Guardian&amp;c4=Germany%2CMotoring+%28Technology%29%2CRoad+transport+%28News%29%2CPsychology+%28Science%29%2CEurope%2CWorld+news&amp;c5=Motoring%2CUnclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful&amp;c6=Helen+Pidd&amp;c7=11-Oct-13&amp;c8=1647368&amp;c9=Article&amp;c10=News&amp;c11=World+news&amp;c13=&amp;c25=&amp;c30=content&amp;h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FGermany&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;standfirst&quot;&gt;How GDR psychologist&#039;s design became traffic light of choice after reunification &ndash; and a cult figure in Germany and beyond&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is one of the few enduring symbols of East Germany: a jaunty little man in a hat, showing pedestrians in the socialist republic whether it was safe to cross the&amp;nbsp;road.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fifty years after a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,790133,00.html&quot; title=&quot;traffic psychologist in the GDR&quot;&gt;traffic psychologist in the GDR&lt;/a&gt; came up with the design for pedestrian crossing signals that would be easily distinguishable for the visually impaired, the Ampelm&auml;nnchen has become a cult figure around the world.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thursday was the 50th birthday of the East German design, which, like the Brandenburg-reared chancellor, Angela Merkel, is a rare example of a product of the GDR triumphing in a united Germany and beyond.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;These days, the Ampelm&auml;nnchen can be seen across Germany. It nearly wasn&#039;t thus. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, there was a desire, fuelled by the mantra that &quot;west is best&quot;, to dismantle as quickly as possible the remains of the GDR, from the hated Stasi secret police to the street furniture.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unified Germans were to not only use the same currency but also the same traffic lights, with the introduction of a standard &quot;euro&quot; light based on the more staid (and hatless) western design.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the mid-90s, when the euphoria of reunification had worn off, a group of East Germans decided they were not prepared to see another piece of their history thrown onto the scrap heap.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They formed a committee called Rescue the Ampelm&auml;nnchen!, which lobbied Berlin&#039;s traffic minister until he allowed the Ampelm&auml;nnchen to rise again. The David of traffic signalling had triumphed over the imperialist Goliath.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since 2005, many traffic lights in the west of Berlin have been converted to the eastern style and, according to the Berliner Zeitung, in June 2010 the town of H&uuml;ckeswagen, near Cologne, became the first former West German municipality to switch to the eastern design.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Ampelm&auml;nnchen is not just seen at road intersections. In 1995, an enterprising West German patented the design and his company now sells a range of 500 branded items, from dog collars to earrings and, predictably, an iPhone app.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The firm has a turnover of about &euro;8m (&pound;7m) per year, and has four shops in Berlin as well as one in Seoul and another in Tokyo.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The company is run by graphic designer Markus Heckhausen, who bought the patent from the original designer, Karl Peglau.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A precise sort of man, Peglau had worked out that many of the 10,000 road deaths between 1955 and 1960 were due to unclear traffic lights &ndash; specifically that pedestrians were having to follow the same signals as cars.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In bad weather, or for people with poor eyesight, the red, amber and green were hard to distinguish. The Ampelm&auml;nnchen was Peglau&#039;s solution.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 1969 the first of Peglau&#039;s designs was installed on Unter den Linden, East Berlin&#039;s grandest boulevard.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;related&quot; style=&quot;float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/germany&quot;&gt;Germany&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/motoring&quot;&gt;Motoring&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/road-transport&quot;&gt;Road transport&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/psychology&quot;&gt;Psychology&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/europe-news&quot;&gt;Europe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;author&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/helenpidd&quot;&gt;Helen Pidd&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;terms&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk&quot;&gt;guardian.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &amp;copy; 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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