Even on vacation there is something for the association to discover, in this case the former rest home for the employees of the department stores of Leonhard Tietz. At the beginning of August, a small brochure of the recreation home, dated 1933, could be acquired for our collection (picture left). In 1933, in the course of the expropriation by the National Socialists, the Tietz recreation home had already been transferred to the “Eifel-Heim” of the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kaufmannserholungsheime e. V.”. An important role in the decision to build the recreation home in the Eifel town of Daun was played by Max Grünbaum, who was responsible for finance in the management of Leonhard Tietz AG. Grünbaum was able to convince the skeptical company founder to build the recreation home in timber construction by having a wooden house imported from Sweden built for himself in Daun. The obvious construction quality convinced Leonhardt Tietz and so the recreation home was able to open in 1911 (center photo). During World War II, the property was used as a military hospital, then as a lodging facility, most recently as the Hotel “Anna Maria”. A major fire in October 2007 completely destroyed the main building. Only one of the two former dormitory buildings is still standing; however, it has fallen into disrepair (picture on the right). This sad sight was compensated by a conversation with a descendant of Max Grünbaum. We said goodbye with the promise to stay in contact with each other.
Link to the entry in the database of cultural assets in the Trier region: https://kulturdb.de/einobjekt.php?id=19855