Wer Bezahlt Die Runde?

Wer Bezahlt Die Runde? ("Who Pays the Round?") is a rare, one-ball electro-mechanical pinball machine from T.H. Bergmann & Company, a German manufacturer active in Hamburg between 1938 and 1968. Its exact year of production is unconfirmed, and the current owner found no copyright date printed anywhere on the machine.

True to its name, this is a one-player, one-ball game: a single coin (10 Pfennig) buys just one ball, with which the player attempts to score between 1,000 and 200,000 points, tracked on the backglass. The playfield is packed with action for a one-ball game, featuring two flippers, fourteen spring bumpers, and four additional passive bumpers — an unusually bumper-dense layout that rewards precise, high-scoring shots within that single ball.

The machine's name itself created some confusion: it was initially thought that "Wer Bezahlt Die Runde?" might be an adhesive sticker added later by an operator to spur play, but the current owner confirms the words are part of the original silkscreened backglass, appearing as old as the rest of the glass. No information about the machine's specific theme, artist, or artwork inspiration has been documented, leaving its full context still a subject of research for European pinball historians.