German travel agency

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
DER Deutsches Reisebüro GmbH & Co. OHG

logo
legal form GmbH & Co OHG
founding 1917
Seat Frankfurt am Main , Germany
management
  • Andreas Heimann (Chairman)
  • Ingo Burmester
  • Mark Tantz
Number of employees 2,474
sales EUR 155.7 million
Branch Tourism
Website www.der.com

The DER Deutsches Reisebüro GmbH & Co. OHG (short- OF ) is part of the tourism industry , based in Frankfurt am Main . The company, founded in Berlin in 1917 as "Central European Travel Agency", was renamed German Travel Agency after the Second World War. It has been part of the Rewe Group since 2000 and is one of the leading German tourism companies.

History until 1945

Telegram on the fee regulation for special trains for Jews from Belgium, France and Holland to Auschwitz with the request that the Central European Travel Agency arrange for the continuous dispatch.

Founded in 1917 by the state railways of the German federal states (50.1% stake) - the latter owned the railways before the establishment of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1920 - the company was only founded one year later by HAPAG and Norddeutscher Lloyd due to the accession of new shareholders, in particular the Austrian Development agency and the Hungarian State railways , in Central European travel agency renamed (MER). In 1926 the first subsidiary was founded in New York. Later branches in Cleveland, Los Angeles and Chicago were added. In 1929, ADAC Travel and Business Services GmbH was founded in Munich . At the end of the 1920s, the expansion of the MER had taken on extensive proportions. With 1,000 agencies, three quarters of them abroad (including Paris, London and Rome), the company had developed into an internationally recognized tour operator.

In 1936 the Central European Travel Agency moved into the new management building, the former Palace Hotel , at Leipziger Platz 18/19 in Berlin.

MER also organized the trips of the National Socialist organization Kraft durch Freude (KdF): Already in 1934 80,000 vacationers were transported as passengers to Madeira via KdF programs , in 1937 there were already 150,000 travelers. In addition, package tours were included in the travel program for the first time. Due to the management by foreign exchange , the international travel business was limited. When the war began, MER had 17 branches of its own in Berlin, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Cologne, Vienna, Linz, London, Paris, Rome, Milan, New York, Los Angeles and Buenos Aires.

The company was also involved in the Holocaust , the Nazi extermination of the Jews: As a corresponding instruction from the Reichsbahn from 1942 shows, the costs for the deportation of Jews from the Netherlands, Belgium and France to Auschwitz were paid to the Central European Travel Agency pay.

On November 23, 1943, the MER headquarters on Leipziger Platz in Berlin was destroyed by a bomb attack. At the end of the war, the Allied Control Council decided that all foreign representations and branches of MER were expropriated and the company was renamed German Travel Agency again . Another requirement was that DER was not allowed to open or buy any further branches until 1954.

The DER Touristik Group commissioned the Cologne history office Reder, Roeseling & Prüfer to investigate the company during the Nazi era. The result has been available since 2017, but has not been published. The reason given by the company was that the investigation should serve as a "self-assurance" and was not intended for the public.

History of the travel agency in Greater Berlin and in the Soviet Zone / GDR

German travel agency branch in Leipzig (1954)

The legal successor of the travel agency MER / DER saw itself, which had its sphere of activity after the end of the war in Greater Berlin and in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany and from 1964 operated under the name Travel Agency of the GDR . The GDR travel agency was a member of the International Association of Travel Agencies (FIAV) based in Brussels . As early as November 1960, the GDR news agency ADN spoke in its report about the involvement of DER in the work of the FIAV (Fédération Internationale des Agences de Voyages) as an "active member" of the GDR's travel agency , but used the well-known travel agency abbreviation "OF THE".

The press office of the GDR Ministry of Transport informed four years later through ADN : "... the travel agency of the German Democratic Republic (has) been set up with effect from January 1, 1964" and declared:

"The GDR travel agency is the legal successor to the German Travel Agency (DER) and exercises its previous rights and obligations in the field of national and international tourism."

The logo "DER im Kreis" disappeared from 1964 on or from the shop windows of the previous travel agencies in the GDR, which were incorporated into the GDR travel agency . The GDR travel agency was one of the founding members of the world organization of travel agency associations formed in 1967, called the Universal Federation of Travel Agents Associations / UFTAA .

In mid-July 1945, the "Mitteleuropean travel agency GmbH" (MER) in Greater Berlin resumed its business activities, now with the sale of official tickets, in particular from the Deutsche Reichsbahn , z. B. in the eastern sector of Berlin in the MER travel agency branch 5, which was located in the center of Berlin “Unter den Linden 40” and later moved to Charlottenstrasse 45. In November 1946 there was a press release that said:

“The well-known Central European travel agency received an order from the coordination committee, the Allied Control Council , to limit itself to business of a travel agency within Germany. The name Central European Travel Agency is replaced by German Travel Agency. "

By resolution of the shareholders on February 7, 1947, the partnership agreement of the GmbH was updated accordingly. The object of the company was "now the establishment and operation of travel agencies in Germany to increase travel in and with Germany as well as the operation of all related businesses and companies in Germany". The German travel agency (DER) had planned travel destinations in the post-war period that could be reached in a day's trip from Berlin on the grounds: "Under today's conditions, 14 days of vacation do not allow longer long-distance journeys." The business activity also included that the "DER representatives of Greater Berlin [...] to holders of the official trade fair ID cards [sold] the tickets for the special trains to the Leipzig Spring Fair ."

In 1956, at the Leipzig Spring Fair in Berlin, DER carried out a “permanent bus service” and travelers were given “reduced return tickets” at the DER Leipzig branches “on presentation of the one-way ticket”. The travel agency DER had a special logo as an advertising medium , especially for customer recognition . The typographical design was based on the signet of the Central European Travel Agency registered in the Berlin commercial register in 1918, abbreviated MER, with the outer and inner circle, which are differently designed in black. The abbreviation DER was also shown in bold capital letters sans serif and was arranged in steps - from top left to bottom right - in the field of the inner circle. For example, the DER logo was printed on the cover of the GDR brochure “Hotelführer”, 1957 edition.

From 1949 the DER branches in the Soviet Zone / GDR were administered centrally. The daily newspaper Neue Zeit reported in 1950:

"The DER, which emerged from the earlier MER and started very modestly after 1945, is today with its 64 agencies in the GDR again the most important provider of customer service for travelers."

History of the travel agency in West Berlin and West Germany

The management of DER Deutsches Reisebüro GmbH was based in the four-sector city of Berlin in a building on Schöneberger Ufer. The branches DER 10 ( Steglitz ), DER 11 ( Kurfürstendamm ) and DER 20 ( Zehlendorf ) were located in the western sectors . This headquarters was relocated to Frankfurt am Main during Germany's two-state regime. After the political change in the former GDR, the Frankfurt management of DER had established relationships with the GDR travel agency . DER employees made their experiences available to the GDR travel company, for example there were training programs for employees. DER originally intended to take over parts of the former GDR travel agency. However , after German reunification, the Treuhandanstalt had sold the successor to the GDR travel agency , the European travel agency ERB-Reiseienst GmbH , to the then Kaufhof subsidiary ITS-Länder-Reiseienste GmbH in Cologne , with the approval of the Federal Cartel Office .

Brands and Affiliates

THE travel agency

The tour operator brands Dertour ( own spelling DERTOUR ), Meiers Weltreisen and ADAC Reisen belong to DER.

Travel agency sales include 766 chain travel agencies ( DER Reisebüro , DER Touristik Partner-Service , DER Business Travel ), over 560 franchisees ( Derpart and DER Touristik Partner-Service Franchise ) and over 1500 legally independent travel agencies (combined in the TourContact , Deutscher Reisering partnerships , RCE / ProTours ). All travel agencies operate under their own name. DER travel agencies offer the entire range of the major tour operators and range from vacation trips, air, ship and train tickets to individually designed trips to admission tickets and travel insurance.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Unternehmensregister.de. Retrieved on March 16, 2015 (see 2008 balance sheet).
  2. ^ A b c d Anne Seyboth (editor): Dept. 190, Deutsches Reisebüro GmbH. In: Hessisches Wirtschaftsarchiv - an institution of the Hessian chambers of industry and commerce and the Rhine-Main Chamber of Crafts. Hessisches Wirtschaftsarchiv eV, 2010, accessed on July 9, 2018 .
  3. ^ Raul Hilberg : The annihilation of the European Jews. 9th edition. Volume 2, Berlin 1999, p. 682.
  4. ↑ Martin Doerry : "A Last Remnant of Dignity." Contemporary history: The DER Touristik Group ... earned ... millions from the deportation of Jews to the concentration camps . Der Spiegel, 50, December 7, 2019, pp. 48 - 50 (at the end of the article with reference to this lemma)
  5. ^ Transpress Lexicon Railway . 6th, revised and supplemented edition. Berlin 1971, p. 533, keyword “travel agency”; DNB 820328847
  6. ^ Meyer's Universal Lexicon. , Volume 3, Leipzig 1981, p. 55, keyword "Travel Agency of the German Democratic Republic"
  7. ^ Printed in Neues Deutschland on November 13, 1960, p. 7.
  8. ↑ Neues Deutschland, January 18, 1964, p. 4.
  9. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of July 3, 1968, p. 2.
  10. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , January 1949, p. 6.
  11. ↑ Neues Deutschland, November 27, 1946, p. 6.
  12. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of May 22, 1947, p. 4.
  13. ↑ Neue Zeit of May 15, 1947, p. 4.
  14. ↑ Neues Deutschland, February 17, 1948, p. 4.
  15. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of February 8, 1956, p. 5.
  16. ↑ The clever alphabet. Conversation lexicon in ten volumes. 7th volume, Berlin 1935, p. 26 f. Keyword: "Central European travel agency"
  17. ↑ "HOTELGUIDE the German Democratic Republic" [ "with the democratic sector of Greater Berlin"], ed .: German travel agency in conjunction with the Ministry of Trade and Supply and Deutsche Post advertising. Publisher: DEUTSCHES REISEBÜRO, Central Management, Berlin 1957.
  18. ^ Neue Zeit , June 25, 1950, p. 6.
  19. ^ Official telephone book for Berlin , 1950 edition; Berlin-Kreuzberg, Schöneberger Ufer 67a
  20. ↑ Neue Zeit of January 28, 1991, p. 9.
  21. ↑ Neue Zeit of January 8, 1992, p. 9.

Web links