The association has submitted proposals to the Bürgerkomitee “Rettet die Altstadt Stralsund” e.V. for new plaque texts for the two historic department stores of Tietz and Wertheim. Many thanks once again to everyone who contributed suggestions and feedback. Two texts have been drafted that, in addition to providing information about the buildings, also acknowledge the founders’ wives, reference the expropriation by the Nazis, and further connect to the period following World War II. The following texts have been drafted:
The Wertheim department store traces its origins to a manufacturing and fashion store founded in 1852 in Stralsund by the brothers Abraham and Theodor Wertheim. Abraham and his wife Ida, along with their son Georg and his brothers, expanded the business and, in the years that followed, built one of Germany’s largest department store chains. By 1938, the Jewish owners had been forced out of the company and expropriated. The department store at Ossenreyerstraße 8–10, which opened on December 5, 1903, was expanded in 1927–1928 to include the properties at Ossenreyerstraße 11–12. From 1949 to 1990, the building housed a Konsum department store.
The Leonhard Tietz department store originated from a small shop that Leonhard Tietz, a Jewish merchant from Birnbaum (formerly in the Province of Posen, now Poland), opened at 31 Ossenreyerstraße on August 14, 1879. Starting from Stralsund, he, his wife Flora, and other family members built Leonhard Tietz AG into one of Germany’s major department store chains. After the Tietz family was forced by the Nazis to withdraw from the company and was expropriated in 1933–34, the company was renamed Westdeutsche Kaufhof AG, later Kaufhof AG. The department store at Ossenreyerstraße 19, which opened on October 11, 1902, was built according to plans by architect Georg Falck. The current façade, in the Brick Expressionist style, dates from 1927.