Christian Leberecht Schnabel was a German designer and inventor.
Background
Born as a son of a German smith and a Russian seamstress Schnabel was at times because of his original and innovative, but often as not very suitably for everyday life classified inventions, a well-known figure of the Bavarian public life.
Career
Kästner was impressed by Schnabel and published after his death a poem about him in the book Doctor Erich Kästners lyrische Hausapotheke (1936). Later Schnabel was mentioned as one example for "the funny Germans" in an anthology. "The easy is the most difficult" is a famous word of Schnabel and it also became the principle of his life: Schnabel mostly experimented on everyday objects trying to improve them.
Especially his simplistic food cutleries, which reached from a mixture between fork and knife up to a fork with only one prong became virtually legendary.
Earning laughs for such inventions in his lifetime, today there are in more extensive cutlery sets not seldom found parts which are not unlike the Schnabel-Inventions around the turn of the century. Nevertheless it seems to be possible, that Schnabel never really wantet to invent useful objects and must be seen as a kind of early performance artist.
Erfinder-Rundschau. München: Erfinder-Rundschau, 1913 -1914
Rainer Thor: Humor ins Haus.
Hamburg-Poppenbüttel: Humor ins Haus Board
340., Erfinder sind oft grosse Kinder, 1962.