Career
Born in Giengen, Germany she used a wheelchair, due to polio that she contracted as a baby. She started making stuffed animals as a hobby. These toys began as elephants, which were originally a design Steiff found in a magazine and at first sold as pincushions to her friends.
However, children began playing with them, and in the years following she went on to design many other successful animal-themed toys for children, such as dogs, cats and pigs.
She designed and made most of the prototypes herself. She died of pneumonia in Giengen.