Board-games publisher Abacus sits above a coffee bar in a squat office building in the grey Frankfurt suburb of Dreiech. But the dreary environs cannot mask the fact that the company is a shining example of German industry’s skill of rising above home-market limits by selling even unlikely sounding products abroad.

Like the German car industry in better days, Germany’s two-dozen board-games makers are trendsetters the world over. So successful have German wares become that foreign rivals are putting German innovations into their products – much like Japan’s Toyota decided to build the Lexus to take on Mercedes.