The Tietz department store in Wuppertal-

Elberfeld Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the Germany, German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929. History The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was ...

(today

Galeria Kaufhof Galeria Kaufhof GmbH was a German department store chain, headquartered in Cologne. It was a member of the International Association of Department Stores from 1930 to 2010, with various CEOs acting as presidents of the Association over time. Un ...

) is a historically significant

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...

building that was seized from its Jewish owners under the Nazis.

Early history

The Tietz department store was cofounded by

Hermann Tietz Hermann Tietz (born 29 April 1837, in Birnbaum an der Warthe near Posen (today Międzychód, Poland), died on 3 May 1907 in Berlin) was a German-Jewish merchant, co-founder of the Tietz Department Store. He was buried in the Weißensee Cemete ...

(1837–1907) in 1882. The building was designed by

Wilhelm Kreis Wilhelm Kreis (17 March 1873 – 13 August 1955) was a prominent German architect and professor of architecture, active through four political systems in German history: the Wilhelmine era, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the found ...

, one of the leading architects of the time, who also designed the

Bismarck Tower A Bismarck tower () is a specific type of monument built according to a more or less standard model across Germany to honour its first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck (d. 1898). A total of 234 of these towers were inventoried by Kloss and Seele i ...

in Wuppertal, on behalf of Leonhard Tietz AG as a multi-department store based on the French model. It was built in 1911/1912 and opened on April 24, 1912, at Neumarkt in Elberfeld (today No. 26). The immense variety of goods under one roof offered the population of the time a completely new shopping experience. Prior to this, a first branch existed on Herzogstrasse from 1885, which was considered Germany's first department store.

Nazi-era seizure

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the Tietz were persecuted because of their Jewish heritage. The store was boycotted. All businesses of the Tietz family were "Aryanized" (i.e., seized from Jews and transferred to non-Jewish owners) and the family members emigrated. The Tietz department store was "aryanised" in 1934. Oscar Tietz's son Martin Tietz migrated with his wife to Liechtenstein in 1939 and his assets were seized by the Gestapo. In 1933, Georg Karg, the new non-Jewish owner, changed the company's name to "Hertie Department Stores" as an abbreviation of Hermann Tietz. Oscar Tietz's son-in-law, Hugo Zwillenberg was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938, imprisoned in the

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners t ...

for three weeks after which he and emigrated to the Netherlands.

Postwar

The department store, which was partially destroyed during the war, was rebuilt after 1945. The striking sandstone facade on Neumarkt had to give way to a steel construction, but the north facade on today's Neumarktstrasse was preserved. The implementation of the Galeria concept of the Kaufhof company took place in 2000. The store closed in January 2024.

Literature

* Max Creutz: ''Das Warenhaus Tietz in Elberfeld, von Prof.

…''. X. Sonderheft der Architektur des XX. Jahrhunderts. Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin 1912.

Online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity, and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed as "on lin ...

* Hermann J. Mahlberg, Hella Nußbaum: ''Aufbruch um 1900 und die Moderne in der Architektur des Wuppertals. Abendrot einer Epoche.'' Müller+Busmann, Wuppertal 2008. * Michael Okroy: ''Volksgemeinschaft, Erbkartei und Arisierung. Ein Stadtführer zur NS-Zeit in Wuppertal.'' Wuppertal 2008². * ''Das Warenhaus Tietz in Wuppertal – Tempel des Konsums und Ort der Moderne''. Illustr. Broschüre, hrsg. vom Trägerverein Begegnungsstätte Alte Synagoge Wuppertal e.V., Wuppertal 2012

References

External links