Wronker Department Store

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Department store of the Wronker brothers in Pforzheim

Kaufhaus wronker the popular term for which was department stores of retail trade - company Hermann Wronker AG . The company's “flagship” was the famous department store on the Zeil in Frankfurt am Main , which was destroyed by British air raids in 1944 .

Foundation and expansion

Postcard from 1898 Verlag des Waarenhaus S. Wronker & Co. Nachf.

The Jewish merchant and retail entrepreneur Hermann Wronker was a nephew of the brothers Leonhard and Oscar Tietz . In 1887 he and his older brother Simon founded a "yarn, button, trimmings , white and woolen goods business" in Mannheim under the company S. Wronker & Co. The first department store was founded in Pforzheim by the Wronker brothers, initially in 1890 as a branch and in rented rooms in the corner building at Marktplatz 13 / Apothekergasse.

In 1904 a Wronker department store was opened in Mannheim (in square E 1). Further branches existed u. a. in Nuremberg , Pforzheim and Hanau . In 1921 it was converted into a stock corporation , Hermann Wronker AG . At the height of the expansion in the 1920s, Hermann Wronker AG employed 3,000 people, who generated annual sales of more than 35 million Reichsmarks in the department stores .

Great Depression

The global economic crisis that began in 1929 led to an existence-threatening crisis. Sales collapsed and the company posted losses. Hermann Wronker had to withdraw from the management. Max Wronker, the founder's son, ran the department store chain from 1931 to 1933 as general director ( chairman of the board ).

The houses in Nuremberg and Pforzheim were sold for renovation and one of the Frankfurt houses was rented to Woolworth . The restructuring was successful and the company was in the black again.

Aryanization, escape and murder

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the company was " Aryanized ". The owners Max and Hermann Wronker were banned from the house and were expropriated , the Nazis set up a new management. In 1934 the company changed its name to Hansa AG . In 1952 the company was incorporated into the Hertie Group .

Max Wronker and his family fled first to France, then to Egypt and finally to the USA. Hermann and his wife Ida Wronker had a visa for the USA and tried to leave the country from the south of France, but were interned in Drancy after the occupation of France and probably murdered in Auschwitz in 1942 .

After the war, Max, already seriously ill, and his sister Alice Wronker tried in vain to obtain a reimbursement for the company or compensation through legal channels. Buildings and Zeil land were always the property of the Odenwald entrepreneur family Winterhelt. The Wronker claims could only be based on the company value, since the Wronker family held 91% of the share capital in 1933. They at least received the land in Frankfurt am Main that had been seized by the Nazis back via the reparation chambers or agreed payments with the obligated parties in comparison.

The building in Frankfurt

Wronker department store, Zeil 97 to Zeil 191–105, architect Otto Engler (1861–1940)
Wronker department store branch, Leipziger Strasse in Bockenheim

The Frankfurt parent company Zeil 14/16, opened in 1891, was expanded to include Hasengasse 15/17 in 1896. In 1897 the building burned down completely. The new building took place on the Zeil 97 property. In 1908 and 1909, the Wronker department store on the Zeil 101-105 and Holzgraben 6-10 properties was expanded into the largest department store in the city, creating an 80-meter-wide street front in the then modern reform style . The Barckhausen Palace had to give way to this expansion . The investor for the large department store was the Odenwald entrepreneur family Winterhelt, who brought in all of the Zeil land and financed the construction. The architect was Otto Engler, who also worked for Tietz and Carsch at the time. Hermann Wronker only brought in a piece of land in the Holzgraben, but developed the visionary and successful department store concept for that time. The last expansion took place in 1926 with the incorporation of the Zeil 99 building.

Remnants of the building to the wooden ditch
Building detail

The building was largely destroyed in the Second World War . Only remnants of the back (to the wooden ditch) are still preserved today. After the reconstruction, the building was used by the DeFaKa (German family department store) chain of department stores .

literature

  • Jürgen Schwarz: Architecture and Commerce. Studies on German department store architecture before the First World War using the example of the Zeil in Frankfurt. (= Frankfurter Fundamente der Kunstgeschichte , Volume 12.) Dissertation , Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-923813-11-2 .
  • Dieter Mönch: Forgotten Names Destroyed Lives The history of the Jewish Wronker family from Frankfurt and their large department store on the Zeil, Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-060336-5

Web links

Commons : S. Wronker & Co.  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stefan Appelius: Aryanizations. Lilli and the department store kings. online on: one day at spiegel.de (no date)
  2. ↑ a b Journal for the History of the Upper Rhine , Vol. 155, Verlag G. Braun, 2007, p. 507 u.ö. ( limited preview of Google Books )

Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 50.7 "  N , 8 ° 40 ′ 56.7"  E