Carl Peters (entrepreneur, 1868)
Carl Adolf Theodor Peters (born February 29, 1868 in Güstrow ; † February 18, 1936 in Cologne ) was a German entrepreneur and merchant from Cologne.
Career
Carl Peters grew up as one of six children in Güstrow in simple circumstances and contributed to the family's upkeep by running errands as early as 1876. In April 1882 he began a commercial apprenticeship at Bernhard Meyer & Co. Hamburger Engros-Lager in Güstrow, went to Hamburg in 1886 and got a loan of 60,000 marks there to set up a company . Peters traveled to Cologne with the money in 1891 and rented a 160 m² shop in the house at Breite Strasse 52 .
Carl Peters began selling general goods there on September 26, 1891 with nine salespeople and expanded in 1895 by taking over two floors of the “Neue Welt” restaurant. Peters acquired Gut Eichthal in Overath , built in 1832 by the Cologne merchant Wilhelm Christians, in 1900 and converted it from 1903. Peters himself lived in Cologne-Lindenthal , Haydnstraße 19. In 1908 he acquired a piece of land on Hämergasse and then in 1909 three neighboring properties on nearby Breite Straße 103 and from 1910 left the large Carl Peters department store, which was built in three construction phases, to Cologne architect Carl Moritz ( KCP), the building block of which bordered five streets (Breite Straße 103-135 / Zeppelinstraße 10-16 / Hämergasse / Richmodstraße / Am alten Posthof) and was inaugurated in 1914. Behind the 350 meter long street front and 100 shop windows there was 24,000 m² of retail space. The department store named after him carried an extensive range of "clothing and silk fabrics, trimmings and lace, hats, linen, white goods, linings" through to the latest models in women's and men's clothing and thus became one of the well-known shopping addresses in the Cologne region . With over 1,000 employees, he had owned the largest department store in West Germany since 1929 at the latest .
Peters wrote in the Mecklenburg daily newspaper about himself and the barren, arduous conditions during his childhood: “I was born in Güstrow on the leap day of 1868.” Peters had the house at Elisenstrasse 8 built by the architect Ludwig Paffendorf in 1904 , and Paffendorf also built the villa for the children Andreas Peters (1923/1924, Haydnstrasse 19) and Charlotte Peters (1928/1929, Brahmsstrasse 10).
Death and continuation of the department store
Since Peters died in Cologne on February 18, 1936, he did not live to see the war years. The Carl Peters department store burned down after a bomb attack on May 31, 1942, and the “company necessary to supply Cologne” moved its stocks to the arts and crafts museum. On March 2, 1945, further bombing raids led to its total destruction. A provisional reopening took place in June 1948. The official reopening took place on September 26, 1949, exactly 58 years after it was founded. His heirs continued the department store until July 1960, after which Karstadt took over the Carl Peters department store, the front of which from the early days of the company is still partially preserved today.
Peter's daughter Charlotte Peters bequeathed the Eichthal estate to the city of Overath in 1988.
Individual evidence
- ^ Georg Wenzel: German business leader . Life courses of German business personalities. A reference book on 13,000 business figures of our time. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg / Berlin / Leipzig 1929, DNB 948663294 , column 1685 f.
- ^ Joachim Puttkammer: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. 100 famous minds. 2011, p. 90. ( Preview of Google Books )
- ↑ Barbara Kirschbaum: "The new Citroën - completely German!" 2002, p. 91
- ↑ Mecklenburg daily newspaper of November 3, 1928
- ^ Museum of Applied Arts, Chronicle 1888-1988. 1988, p. 130
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Peters, Carl |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Peters, Carl Adolf Theodor (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German entrepreneur and commercial clerk |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 29, 1868 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Guestrow |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 18, 1936 |
| Place of death | Cologne |