Cramer & Meermann
| Cramer & Meermann | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH & Co. KG |
| founding | 1891 |
| Seat | formerly Essen , Germany |
| Number of employees | around 2,000 |
| sales | around 100 million Deutschmarks (1978) |
| Branch | Textile department store / retail |
Cramer & Meermann was a textile retail company that existed from 1891 to 1997 and was based in Essen . At times it had several branches in Essen, Dortmund and Wuppertal .
history
In 1891 the merchants Max Cramer and Josef Meermann took over the Essen branch of the brothers Johannes and Friedrich Sinn (later SinnLeffers ) under the name Cramer & Meermann. Max Cramer left the company a short time later, and Josef Meermann settled on Limbecker Strasse in Essen in 1908 .
Josef Meermann was born on November 11, 1862 in Westönnen ( Werl ). He came from a farm and did an apprenticeship in the haberdashery, white and wool store E. Vogt in Münster . He then came to the Sinn brothers company in Krefeld and managed their Düsseldorf branch. In 1887 he married Gertrud nee Broichmann (born December 8, 1862 in Stockheim (Kreuzau) ; † October 1, 1957 in Essen), with whom he expanded the Cramer & Meermann house, which opened in Essen in 1891. Gertrud's sister Elisabeth was also appointed to the management on April 1, 1898.
Six years after the company was founded, it had 21 employees. With suitable goods at reasonable prices, the large buyer group of workers in the Ruhr area was initially addressed. In 1908 a new department store was built on Limbecker Strasse in Essen, which was expanded to Strasse II. Hagen in 1910. After the First World War , there were 3.5 million customers in 1925 and 4.5 million in 1926. In 1929 an extensive expansion of the department store up to Brandstrasse with 12,000 square meters of usable space was completed. The number of customers rose to 7.5 million in 1931. After a branch in Kampstrasse in Dortmund with around 3500 square meters of retail space was opened in 1937, 500 employees worked in Dortmund and 1200 in Essen in 1937, with up to 70,000 customers visiting the house in Essen per day.
The company's founder Josef Meermann died in Essen on November 23, 1938, after which his two sons Josef and Peter continued the business. In addition, Josef and Gertud Meermann had four daughters who were not employed by the company. Josef Meermann (1888–1965) attended the Carl-Humann-Gymnasium in Steele and graduated from high school. He then studied political economy as well as law and political science in Bonn , Freiburg im Breisgau , Münster and Strasbourg . After receiving his doctorate in 1912, he did practical training in banking at the Rheinische Bank in Essen. He also attended the higher technical school for spinning, weaving and knitting in Reutlingen . After entering his parents' business, he received power of attorney . His brother Peter Meermann, born in 1896, also joined his parents' business in 1922. He previously completed a specialist degree at a bank and, like his brother Josef, attended the higher technical school for spinning, weaving and knitting in Reutlingen, which was followed by a practical year at the Breuninger department store in Stuttgart .
When about 90 percent of downtown Essen was destroyed in World War II , the Cramer & Meermann department store was also hit. A fresh start was made with initially 250 square meters of retail space until the beginning of June 1951, on the day the company was 60 years old, the newly built department store was opened at the same location with around 16,000 square meters. Mayor Hans Toussaint gave a speech of thanks. In the meantime there were other branches in the Essen districts of Rüttenscheid , Steele and Schonnebeck .
In 1976 a 4700 square meter branch followed on Von-der-Heydt-Platz in Wuppertal, formerly Horten .
The British retail company Marks & Spencer bought the main building on Limbecker Strasse in Essen, which was closed in 1997, as well as the two branches in Dortmund and Wuppertal and opened its branches there in autumn 1998. In 1999 Mark & Spencer left the Essen house again. The Sportscheck company was based there between 2001 and 2016 .
literature
- A cornerstone of the shopping city. The proud company history of Cramer & Meermann. In: Essener Woche , issue No. 4 from June 9th to 16th, 1951
- 50 years of Cramer & Meermann 1891–1941. (Festschrift) Essen 1941.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c User report Cramer & Meermann GmbH & Co. KG, Essen ; in: Computerwoche.de of August 11, 1978
- ↑ a b Erwin Dickhoff: Essen heads . Ed .: City of Essen - Historical Association for City and Monastery of Essen. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8375-1231-1 .
- ↑ Horizont , Issue No. 35 of August 28, 1997
- ↑ Lebensmittel Zeitung , issue No. 30 of July 24, 1998