Rothberger department store
The Rothberger department store , formerly Stephansplatz 9 and 11, was a large textile department store in downtown Vienna before 1938 .
history
The company's founder Jacob Rothberger was born on December 9, 1825 in Albertirsa in Pest County (Hungary) and worked for several years as a tailor in Paris, where he also finished his journeyman's piece. In 1855 he applied for a trade license as a tailor for Vienna's inner city, which he received in 1856. But Rothberger kept a stock of finished clothes from the start. In 1861 he opened a small shop on the third floor of the building at Stephansplatz 9. Part of the company's concept was also a clothes flood where customers could hand in their old clothes and thus receive discounts on the purchase price of new textiles.
The clothing business that was developing at that time was promoted by an imperial patent dated December 20, 1859, with which a new, more liberal trade regulation replaced the old guild regulations. The Rothbergers company expanded and the house on Stephansplatz was acquired. However, the state of construction was considered questionable and a long-term dispute arose over the demolition order from the municipal authorities. In 1886 the new “Kleidpalast”, a work by the architects of Fellner & Helmer , was opened. The new house met the latest technical standards with its electric lighting, hydraulic elevator and steam central heating. The confectionery shop Victor Schmidt & Söhne and a lingerie shop acted as tenants .
In 1893 Rothberger, whose company now employed hundreds of master craftsmen in Vienna, also acquired the house at Stephansplatz 11 and had it converted by the proven team of architects. The connection between the two houses was made behind the narrow house located in between, Stephansplatz 10.
In the course of the new building and necessary adjustments to the building line restrictions, however, there was a conflict between the patriarchal Rothberger and the Vienna City Council, and the conflict escalated, not least because of the prominent location opposite St. Stephen's Cathedral and the increasing small - scale anti-Semitism . In the council meeting of May 8, 1894, therefore, wild scenes took place. The Christian Social Alderman Joseph Gregorig regretted for example, that "a Jew castle will rise to old German site, a mausoleum of old pants" . However, this did not initially hinder the company's prosperous progress. When Jakob Rothberger died on March 30, 1899, he left an important fortune. In the obituaries he was recognized as the founder of the large industrialized clothing industry in Austria. The management of the company was then - together - the sons Heinrich (born September 13, 1868 in Vienna; † January 20, 1953 in Montreal ), Alfred (born October 24, 1873 in Vienna; † May 23, 1932 there ) and Moriz ( * December 24, 1865 in Vienna; † September 20, 1944 there ). For the 50-year existence of the company, which was established as a purveyor to the imperial and royal court in 1867 , every buyer received a prosperous American watch on May 20, 1905 . Nothing is known about further festivities.
The company remained successful and run as a family business in the first third of the 20th century. In 1938 after the “Anschluss” , however, it was “Aryanized”; Wilhelm Bührer, a businessman from Berlin who soon got into economic difficulties, acted as buyer. At the end of the war in 1945, the two Rothberger houses burned down. The first thing to do was renovation and reconstruction work, which was financed in advance by a bank. However, the Rothberger heirs eventually sold to an insurance company, and the reconstruction corresponded to the aesthetic ideas of the post-war period .
literature
- Franz Planer (Ed.): The Yearbook of the Vienna Society 1928. Vienna 1928, p. 286.
- Edith Hann: Men's clothing magazine Jacob Rothberger. A case study on the development of Viennese men's clothing. In: Andreas Lehne (ed.), Gerhard Meißl, Edith Hann: Wiener Warenhäuser. 1865-1914. Deuticke, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-7005-4488-X , p. 85 ff.
- Dieter Klein , Martin Kupf , Robert Schediwy : Stadtbildverluste Wien. A look back over five decades . Third edition. LIT-Verlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7754-X , p. 100.
- Joseph Schwaighofer: On the history of the Viennese department store . Competitions Architekturjournal, No. 267/268, February / March 2008, p. 36 f.
- Gabriele Anderl (Ed.): … Significantly more cases than assumed. Ten years of the Commission for Provenance Research . Series of publications by the Commission for Provenance Research , Volume 1, ZDB -ID 2475781-0 . Böhlau, Vienna (among others) 2009, ISBN 978-3-205-78183-7 .
- Christina Gschiel, Ulrike Nimeth, Leonhard Weidinger: tailoring and collecting: the Rothberger family in Vienna . Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2010, ISBN 3-20578-414-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hann: men's clothing magazine Jacob Rothberger , p. 93.
- ↑ Rainald Franz, Leonhard Weidinger: “that the collection also contained arts and crafts objects” . In: Anderl: … significantly more cases than assumed , p. 156. - Text online .
- ↑ according to the Neues Wiener Tagblatt from the day
Remarks
- ↑ Whether during a bomb attack, as Hann notes, or after looting, as Kupf, p. 100, writes, cannot be verified here.
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 31.2 ″ N , 16 ° 22 ′ 19.6 ″ E