Department stores button

The button department stores were regionally important South German and Swiss trading companies between the end of the 19th century and the end of the 1970s. They were founded by members of the Jewish button family. Like the Tietz family ( Hermann Tietz - Hertie - and Leonhard Tietz - later Kaufhof ), this came from the Polish town of Międzychód , which belonged to the Prussian district of Posen around 1850 and was then called Birnbaum.

history

Registered share for CHF 500 in Sally Knopf AG in Lucerne on September 2, 1935

The first department store of the Knopf siblings was founded in 1881 by the youngest of the Knopf brothers, Max Knopf (1857–1934), together with his ten years older sister Johanna under the name of “ Warenhaus Geschwister Knopf ” in Karlsruhe . He was followed by his brother Moritz, who was five years older than him, with a department store opening in Strasbourg under the name “M. Button ”as well as another one in Lahr in southern Baden .

The sister Eva knob married Rudolph Schmoller, who then in Mannheim a warehouse and 1900 with his brother Hermann in Frankfurt am Main , the department store Hansa opened. The representative department store was built in the style of a Loire castle on Mannheim's Paradeplatz . In 1938 Schmoller was forced to argue. Today there is a Kaufhof branch on the square .

In 1887 the eldest of the Knopf siblings, Sally, opened a department store in Freiburg im Breisgau , initially as a “Strasbourg wholesale warehouse” under the company name “M. Stud". From about 1900 he traded under his own name with " S. Knopf ". Sally Knopf expanded his business into Switzerland and opened shops in Basel , Lucerne , Interlaken and Friborg , among others . A button house in Zurich that Brother Albert opened could not last; a former managing director of the Zurich branch later founded the Brann department store . More Knopf branches were opened in southern Baden, in Lörrach , Schopfheim , Emmendingen and later also in Offenburg , which, like the Swiss branches, were supplied from the headquarters in Freiburg.

Former button store on Marienplatz in Ravensburg (photo from 2011)

By buying together, the Knopf brothers were able to offer low prices and thus sometimes put the local retail trade in trouble. By the end of the First World War , the Knopf brothers had built up an empire of around 70 houses, branches and partner companies. The other joint business relationships are still largely unknown, as the history of the Knopf family has not yet been well researched. It is also unclear how it came about that the brothers also opened stores in each other's areas. Max Knopf, who was actually active in North Baden, had also opened stores in Stuttgart and Ravensburg , but also in the Moritz Knopf area, in Metz, Luxembourg and Alsace. Shops in Konstanz , Winterthur and Schaffhausen can also be traced back to Max Knopf.

With the end of the First World War, the houses in Alsace and Lorraine were lost. In the German Reich, the houses were able to hold up until the " Aryanization " in 1937/38, although from 1933 the mood against the "department store Jews", who allegedly harmed the local retail trade, had been fueled.

After the Second World War , Sally Knopf's heirs were resumed partners in the Freiburg department store with up to eleven branches in southern Baden until 1982 under the name “Kaufhaus für Alle”. On March 4, 1978, Basler Knopf AG was taken over by the clothing company C&A after having been in family hands for four generations. The remaining button department stores were also taken over by C&A and the department store group Loeb until 1979 .

literature

• The shy giant: The Jewish button department store in Freiburg was part of an important chain of department stores. In: Chilli - Freiburg city magazine. September 13, 2012, archived from the original on November 10, 2016 . 
• Thomas Frei: Looking for a specific button. In: Pforzheimer Zeitung . April 1, 2011 . 
• John F. Müller: When the department store came to Rastatt. In: Badisches Tagblatt . January 29, 2011 . 
• The Knopf family established a department store tradition. In: Baden's latest news . April 13, 2011. 
• John F. Müller: "'s Knopfe-Eck" - documents and contemporary witnesses valuable for doctoral theses. In: The courier . September 15, 2011 . 
• Susanne Räuchle: The rise and fall of a department store empire . In: morgenweb.de . February 9, 2011, archived from the original on December 18, 2015 (also as image file , 1.3 MB). 
• Philipp Richter: Expropriated: button department store was Jewish. In: Schwäbische Zeitung . April 4, 2011 . 
• Bernd Serger: Shopping “at Knopfe”. In: Badische Zeitung . January 16, 2011, archived from the original on December 30, 2015 . 

Web links

Commons : Department stores button  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Dissertation project on Knopf at Cambridge University

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Susanne Räuchle: Rise and Fall of a department store empire. In: morgenweb.de . February 9, 2011, archived from the original on December 18, 2015 ; accessed on June 7, 2019 . Department store H. Schmoller & Co. (jpg, 112 kB) In: ais.badische-zeitung.de. Retrieved June 7, 2019 . Mannheim branch P1 Am Paradeplatz. In: galeria-kaufhof.de. Retrieved June 7, 2019 . 
    
    
2. ↑ Susanne Räuchle: Rise and Fall of a department store empire. In: morgenweb.de . February 9, 2011, archived from the original on December 18, 2015 ; accessed on June 7, 2019 . According to Bernd Serger, there were less than 60. 
   
3. ^ Christoph Merian Foundation (ed.): Basler Stadtbuch 1978 . (= Basler Stadtbuch. Volume 99). Basel 1979, ISBN 3-85616-006-X .