Gerson Department Store

Herrmann Gerson's clothing store , lithograph by Wilhelm Loeillot de Mars, around 1850

The Gerson department store is considered the first Berlin department store. The clothing store had been in Friedrichswerder at Werderschen Markt 5 since 1848/1849 and offered ready-made (ready-made) clothing in a magnificent building. The department store was destroyed in the Second World War . Today there is a hotel complex at this point between the Foreign Office and the Telekom headquarters in Berlin.

Herrmann Gerson

The founder and owner of the Gerson department store was Herrmann Gerson (1813–1861), a Jewish merchant who came to Berlin in 1835 and trained in the prestigious Wolfenstein manufacture. In 1836 he co-founded the Wald & Gerson white goods store ; In 1839 he opened his first own shop with the name Herrmann Gerson in the building of the Royal Building Academy at Werderscher Markt No. 3. From 1842 Gerson also supplied the Prussian court. Together with the Mannheimer brothers, Rudolph Hertzog and David Leib Levin, Herrmann Gerson is considered one of the founders of the Berlin clothing industry, which later became one of the main pillars of the industry in Berlin. The company founded by Herrmann Gerson was the largest in its branch in Berlin in 1894 with annual sales of 30 million marks and was still considered a leader in the 1920s.

The first department store building on Werderschen Markt 5

The Gerson department store had a glass-roofed inner courtyard with daylight, picture by Theodor August Stein , 1851

Gerson department store on Werderscher Markt in Berlin, 1849

Pre-Christmas rush of customers at the Gerson department store in 1893, which was brightly lit in the evening (unknown contemporary graphic artist)

The commercial success allowed Herrmann Gerson to buy a building diagonally across from the Bauakademie (the former house of the banker Carl Wilhelm Jacob Schultze) and to have it converted in 1848 by the Aachen government and building councilor Theodor August Stein . Due to the revolutionary events in Berlin in 1848 , construction dragged on longer than planned. Herrmann Gerson was only able to move into the renovated building in 1849. The entire construction cost 130,000 thalers .

The new department store was located in a posh quarter: apart from the building academy already mentioned, the Friedrichswerder Church was to the north , the Berlin Mint built by Johann Heinrich Gentz to the east and the so-called “ Fürstenhaus ”, a former guest house of the Prussian government, and the Royal Main Bank to the south ( the later Reichsbank ).

The magnificently equipped and decorated department store with a usable area of over 800 square meters had an inner atrium with a glass roof and had two open sales floors and two levels with living rooms, studios and storage areas. Architecturally, the building is considered to be the forerunner of the later Berlin department stores. Were sold u. a. Ready-made clothing, embroidery, curtains, silk and upholstery fabrics and carpets. Separate sales areas for the individual items were set up in the building. About 60 seamstresses worked in the studios. The owner's private apartment was also on the second floor.

In the fashion bazaar Gerson & Comp. As the company was called, the effect of the fabrics offered could be tested by the critical buyers both in the daylight courtyard and in a closed mirror cabinet by candlelight. Herrmann Gerson published a fashion magazine in 1856 and 1857 to inform his customers: H. Gerson's fashion newspaper . Magazine for fashion and industry, art and literature.

Shopping as an experience

View into the demonstration room of the Gerson department store, around 1890

A visit to the department store was an uplifting experience for contemporaries. The luxury and the abundance of goods on offer were particularly impressive. In his Berlin Guide from 1861, Robert Springer praised the Gerson department store in the highest tones:

“Gerson's Bazar is the tastiest, greatest and most important manufactured goods store in Germany. [...] What a moving, shimmering life in these rooms full of silky shine, between these walls draped with gleaming carpets, on the stairs covered with soft ceilings, under this army of counting and writing clerks, sales clerks and shop maids, covetous, extravagant generous or haggling buyers! "

- Robert Springer: Berlin. A guide to the city and its surroundings.

New building by Carl Bauer and extension by H. Derneburg

The new building of the Gerson department store on Werderscher Markt in Berlin, also known as the “Kaiser-Bazar”

In 1889 , Philipp Freudenberg, from Bödefeld , became a partner in the company. In 1890 he had the first department store building at Werderschen Markt 5 demolished and replaced by an even larger successor building designed by the architect Carl Bauer. In 1891 Freudenberg took over the entire company. The architect H. Derneburg expanded the new building again in 1919 with an extension. Bankruptcy and suspension of payments took place in April 1932.

Destruction in World War II

The Gerson department store, which was successfully continued after Philipp Freudenberg's death by his art-loving sons Hermann and Julius, was “Aryanized” in 1936 by the National Socialist government . The Reich Criminal Police Office has been located in the converted department store building on Werderschen Markt since 1939.

New building through a hotel complex

After German reunification in 1990, the company " Züblin Projektentwicklung" acquired the property of the former Gerson department store, which is now located between the Foreign Office and the Telekom headquarters in Berlin, and built a four-star hotel, apartments and flats as well as a Office building.

literature

Uwe Aulich: Four-star hotel at the Foreign Office. In: Berliner Zeitung . Online articles
Nora Fiege: Berlin fashion and clothing in the 1920s. Grin-Verlag, Norderstedt 2008. ISBN 978-3-640-46948-2 .
Gesa Kessemeier: A fairy temple of fashion or a forgotten family, an obliterated place. The Freudenberg family and the “Herrmann Gerson” fashion house. Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin 2013. ISBN 978-3-95565-018-6 .
Gesa Kessemeier: Herrmann Gerson. The first Berlin fashion department store. Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin 2016. ISBN 978-3-95565-151-0 .
kla (pseudonym): In 1860 the Hausvogteiplatz was the center of the women's fashion world. In: The world . Online articles
Robert Springer: Berlin. A guide to the city and its surroundings. Verlag II Weber, Leipzig 1861.
Theodor August Stein: The Gerson'sche Modewaaren-Lager zu Berlin, Werderscher Markt No. 5. In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , Jg. 1851, Sp. 131-137.

Web links

Commons : Gerson Department Store - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ Gesa Kessemeier: Herrmann Gerson. The first Berlin fashion department store . Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin 2016, p. 14-19 .
^ Nadja Stulz-Herrnstadt: Berlin bourgeoisie in the 18th and 19th centuries , p. 83, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 2002
^ Verlag II Weber, Leipzig 1861. P. 333 ff.
↑ Gesa Kessemeier: A fairy temple of fashion or a forgotten family, an obliterated place. The Freudenberg family and the “Herrmann Gerson” fashion house . Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin 2013, p. 59-70; 83-88 .

52.515 13.398055555556Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '54 " N , 13 ° 23' 53" E

[1] Gesa Kessemeier: Herrmann Gerson. The first Berlin fashion department store . Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin 2016, p. 14-19 .

[2] Nadja Stulz-Herrnstadt: Berlin bourgeoisie in the 18th and 19th centuries , p. 83, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 2002

[3] Verlag II Weber, Leipzig 1861. P. 333 ff.

[4] Gesa Kessemeier: A fairy temple of fashion or a forgotten family, an obliterated place. The Freudenberg family and the “Herrmann Gerson” fashion house . Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin 2013, p. 59-70; 83-88 .