Lights that brighten hearts.
In 2022, the Herrnhuter Sterne Manufaktur looks back on 125 years of manufacturing Herrnhut stars. It was in the year 1897 when the commercial production of handmade paper stars began in the Upper Lusatian village of Herrnhut. Herrnhuter Sterne GmbH has led this craft into the modern era. Today, the Herrnhut star is considered the origin of all Advent and Christmas stars.
The modern manufacturing building on Oderwitzer Straße was inaugurated in 2010 on the site of the former company building. The new building houses production, warehousing, shipping, and administration, as well as the visitor center. On-site, visitors can expect a show workshop with a permanent exhibition and a cinema hall. In the show workshop, interested visitors can look over the professionals' shoulders and follow how much dexterity goes into creating paper as well as plastic stars.
Regardless of their size, the stars always have the geometry of a rhombicuboctahedron and therefore only truly have 25 points. 17 of these are square and 8 are triangular in shape. A true masterpiece is the smallest paper star in the assortment, which measures a mere 13 centimeters. Crafting such a spiky little one requires skillful hands: for this, small paper surfaces are punched out, narrow adhesive edges are folded with a knife, and point by point is glued together using a brush and tweezers. The routine production of one star takes professionals 1.5 hours after a training period of a year and a half.
Herrnhuter Sterne GmbH
Oderwitzer Straße 8
02747 Herrnhut
Distance: 57 km