Leonhard Tietz
Leonhard Tietz (* 3. March 1849 in Birnbaum , Posen ; † 15. November 1914 in Cologne ) was a German merchant and warehouse - entrepreneurs . His descendants were persecuted by the National Socialists because Leonhard Tietz was of Jewish origin.
Life
.JPG)
On August 14, 1879, Tietz opened a 25 m² textile shop in Stralsund . In 1882 a similar shop followed in Elberfeld , in the first major industrial center in Germany, which was also home to a large number of its suppliers. In 1884 he opened a shop in Schweinfurt and in 1888 in Amberg . The shop in Elberfeld soon turned out to be too small for the closely neighboring cities of Elberfeld and Barmen (which were combined to form the city of Wuppertal in 1929/1930 ). As a result, he implemented his long-cherished wish to build a multi-line department store based on the French model in this “boom town” of high industrialization . 1885 the new house opened in the local Duke Street , Tietz also placed the company's seat at this place. The basis of the rapid growth of his company was the practice he introduced in the German retail trade of selling high-quality products at fixed prices with cash payment. Until then, it was customary to negotiate the price of goods in a time-consuming manner before buying them. He also gave his customers the right to exchange.
On April 7, 1891, Leonhard Tietz opened a 180 square meter store on Hohe Strasse in Cologne . In 1892 he opened a department store in Aachen , initially on Großkölnstraße, and in 1899 the Tietz department store was built in Düsseldorf on Schadowstraße . In 1893 he moved the headquarters of his company from Elberfeld to Cologne. As early as 1896, the Aachen store was moved to the Aachen market and a representative new building was erected there from 1905 (architects Albert Schneider , demolished in the 1960s).
In 1905 the company was converted into a public limited company. 1912–1914, the new Cologne headquarters was opened by the architect Wilhelm Kreis on the corner plot of Hohe Strasse / Gürzenichstrasse . From 1907 to 1909 the Tietz department store on Alleestraße , today the Kaufhof branch on Königsallee , was built in Düsseldorf according to plans by Joseph Maria Olbrich . After Leonhard Tietz's death in 1914, his son Alfred Leonhard Tietz continued the business. The company grew through takeovers and in the early 1930s employed around 15,000 people at 43 locations.
Alfred Leonhard Tietz was still running the company together with Gerhard Tietz when the National Socialists came to power in 1933 and pushed for the so-called " Aryanization " of Jewish department stores. The company was initially changed to Westdeutsche Kaufhof AG (formerly Leonhard Tietz AG) , from 1936 without the addition. The Tietz family had to surrender their shares to banks below their value. She emigrated and was compensated with 5 million DM after the war. Today's Galeria Kaufhof GmbH emerged from Leonhard Tietz's department stores .
It was a similar experience for Hertie owners Hermann Tietz (Leonhard's uncle) and Oscar Tietz (Leonhard's brother).
literature
- Fritz Blumrath: Leonhard Tietz (1849–1915). In: Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien, Volume 7. Aschendorff, Münster 1960, pp. 48–66.
- Nils Busch-Petersen : Leonhard Tietz (1849–1914). Carter's son and warehouse king. From the Warta to the Rhine. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-941450-17-2 , table of contents .
- Peter Fuchs: 100 years of Kaufhof Cologne. 1891-1991. Cologne 1991.
- Hermann Tietz (1837–1907), Leonhard Tietz (1849–1914) and Oscar Tietz (1858–1923). Entrepreneur . In: Ekkehard Vollbach: Poets, Thinkers, Directors. Portraits of German Jews , Leipzig: edition chrismon, ISBN 978-3-96038-243-0 , pp. 225–242.
Web links
- Literature by and about Leonhard Tietz in the catalog of the German National Library
- 95 years ago: Death of department store pioneer Leonhard Tietz , on the WDR reference date , on November 15, 2009
- Tietz Warenhäuser , on postautomation.de, from December 17, 2016, accessed on November 1, 2017
- Early documents and newspaper articles on Leonhard Tietz AG in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bernd Rexing (moog): November 15, 2009 - 95 years ago: Death of department store pioneer Leonhard Tietz . November 14, 2009 ( wdr.de [accessed October 3, 2017]).
- ^ Special publication, 130 years of Galeria Kaufhof , Galeria Kaufhof am Marienplatz , p. 5, October 2009.
- ↑ Schweinfurter Anzeiger: Birthday cake for a long company history . September 24, 2014
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Tietz, Leonhard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-Jewish merchant and department store entrepreneur |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 3, 1849 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | pear tree |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 15, 1914 |
| Place of death | Cologne |