Kepa department store

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kepa department store on Holstenstrasse in Kiel (1954)

The Kepa Kaufhaus GmbH was a German department store chain , which in 1926 as Epa was founded. It acted as Karstadt's low-price chain . The company exists today as a lessor of former locations and is based in Düsseldorf .

history

The American-style chain was founded on July 17, 1926 by what was then Rudolph Karstadt AG under the name Einheitspreis Aktiengesellschaft (EPA) . 52 branches were established by 1932. Typical of the company, which only sold everyday items, were low prices that followed a fixed, graduated " unit price system " (0.10, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75 and 1.00  Reichsmarks ). Furthermore, the range of goods was produced exclusively for Epa and largely manufactured by Epa or Karstadt itself, in particular sausage and meat products, canned goods and chocolate, but also clothing, curtains, mattresses, paper and leather goods. Around 3000 articles were offered. With 5100 employees, the EPA achieved an annual turnover of 111 million Reichsmarks within a short period of time. Companies with a similar structure emerged in Germany ( Ehape 1926), Holland ( Hema 1926) and Switzerland ( EPA 1930).

The financing of the rapid expansion with short-term funds was fatal for EPA and the parent company Karstadt. During the global economic crisis , the parent company got into a crisis because these funds have now been withdrawn. The shares of the still profitable Epa then had to be assigned to a bank consortium. All of the company's own production facilities have been sold or liquidated.

From 1933 the National Socialists undertook propaganda and boycott campaigns against chain stores because they were considered a "Jewish invention", including the Epa. The establishment, expansion and relocation of unit price transactions was prohibited by legal regulations . After the unified price system was finally banned, it was renamed Kepa in 1937 , which simply meant “no Epa”. Later, the abbreviation was occasionally interpreted as "Karstadt shopping paradise". In 1943 the AG was converted into a GmbH .

After the end of the Second World War , the rebuilding of the chain of department stores, which had been weakened by the war destruction and expropriation in East Germany , began. In 1956, the company again had 29 branches and was considered the "largest groschenladen company" in Germany. Depending on the size of the branch, between 6,000 and 13,500 items were offered in the Kepa stores. In 1976 the chain operated 85 houses and achieved a turnover of 1.1 billion marks. In 1977 it was decided to liquidate the branches and the majority of the branches became specialist stores such as B. Karstadt Spiel- + Sporthaus converted. The last locations were closed in 1980.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The models were the 5 and 10 cent stores , especially Woolworth .
  2. ↑ a b Keyword Kepa department stores . In: Munich Stadtlexikon from A to Z . Vol. II. Berg am Starnberger See 1968, p. 213
  3. ↑ s. a. Horst Richard Mutz: The unit price business as a modern form of business in German retail . Berlin, Vienna 1932; Robert Nieschlag; Gustav Kuhn: Internal trade and internal trade policy . Berlin 1980, pp. 148-153.
  4. ↑ a b Rudolf Lenz:  Karstadt, Rudolph. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , pp. 301-303 ( digitized version ).
  5. ↑ a b Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 22 (1977), p. 215; s. a. New archive for Lower Saxony 26 (1977), p. 133
  6. ↑ Alfred-Ingemar Berndt , Erich Schrötter: Give me four years! Documents relating to the leader's first four-year plan . Munich 1939, p. 105
  7. ↑ October 1971 - New Temple of Consumption ( Memento from December 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) on wedel.de (accessed on March 13, 2013 / on archive.org accessed on February 25, 2017)
  8. ^ Kepa department stores: Advance to Flensburg . In: Der Spiegel No. 43 v. October 24, 1956, p. 29f.
  9. ↑ Klaus Bresser; Christoph Thüer (Hrsg.): Recklinghausen in the industrial age . Recklinghausen 2000, p. 199.
  10. ↑ Gunhild Freese: The crisis came in the 50th year. In: The time no. 17th June 1977