Uhlfelder department store

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Memorial plaque in memory of the Uhlfelder department store

The department store Uhlfelder (company name Kaufhaus Heinrich Uhlfelder GmbH ) was a department store in the old town of Munich .

The house was founded in 1878 by the Jewish merchant Heinrich Uhlfelder, initially as a household and haberdashery store in the Rosental. With its range, which is strongly geared towards the target group of lower incomes, Uhlfelder was so successful that he was able to steadily increase the sales area of ​​his shop. By 1930 it had expanded to include the entire block of houses between Oberanger , Rosental and Nieserstraße. 1000 employees and workers fulfilled the wishes of the customers on 7000 m² sales area. The house was thus the second largest department store in the city after the Tietz department store on Bahnhofplatz. The escalators , which stretch over three floors and were first installed in a Munich department store in 1931, were considered a special attraction .

  • Bundesarchiv Bild 119-2671-07, Munich, Uhlfelder department store, Destruction.jpg
  • Bundesarchiv Bild 119-2671-06, Munich, Uhlfelder department store, Destruction.jpg

  • Destruction after the November pogroms

After the company's founder died in 1928, the management of the business was passed on to his son Max , who was already involved in the management during his father's lifetime. When the National Socialists came to power in January 1933, the department store slowly went down. Max Uhlfelder was taken into “ protective custody ” in March 1933 along with 280 other Jews . When the SA called for a nationwide boycott of Jewish shops on April 1, 1933 , demonstrators marched in front of the building. In the pogrom night of 9/10 November 1938 the department store was looted and set on fire. At that time, the owner Max Uhlfelder and his son were imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp . Their release was obtained in January 1939 and the family fled to India on a visa. The entire property was confiscated.

The Munich Asset Utilization , which under Gauleiter Adolf Wagner promoted the Aryanization of Jewish property, operated through the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and supported the liquidation of the Uhlfelder department store by interested retailers . With the support of Munich's Lord Mayor Karl Fiehler , it was finally approved by Reich Economics Minister Hermann Göring . The warehouse of the house went to various retailers, the land was transferred to Löwenbräu AG as a replacement for the forcedly expropriated Bürgerbräukeller . In 1944 the building was badly damaged in the air raids on the city.

After Uhlfelder's return to Munich in 1953, he fought back his property in over 100 reparation proceedings . In 1954 he sold all of the department store properties with the exception of the Rosental 9 property, the nucleus of his father's company, to the city of Munich. Today there is an extension of the Munich City Museum at this point . In addition to a memorial plaque made of stone, a blue neon sign with the name Kaufhaus Uhlfelder in the windows of the museum building facing the Oberanger reminds of the past.

See also

literature

  • City of Munich Cultural Department / National Socialist Documentation Center: Themes History Path. 2012, 2nd edition, pp. 66–69 ( PDF; 3.6 MB ).
  • Helga Pfoertner: Living with history. Vol. 3, Literareron, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-8316-1026-6 , pp. 119–123 ( PDF; 6.0 MB ( memento from June 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive )).

Web links

Commons : Kaufhaus Uhlfelder  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 8 ′ 7 ″  N , 11 ° 34 ′ 25 ″  E