Georg Wertheim

Wertheim grew up in Stralsund. After being an apprentice at Wolff and Apolant, Wertheim along with his brother Hugo, took over in 1876 their parents' (Abraham and Ida Wertheim) haberdashery, founded in 1875.

Georg Wertheim was born into a Jewish family in Stralsund, Germany, in 1857. Although he converted to Christianity in 1906, the Nazi regime still classified him as Jewish under the Nuremberg Laws implemented in 1935. Despite his conversion, Wertheim faced persecution during the Nazi era, leading to the forced transfer (“Aryanization”) of his department store chain to non-Jewish ownership.

The two brothers quickly brought new ideas into the shop: customers were allowed to replace goods, the price of a good was no longer debatable but reliable, and purchases were made strictly with cash. This concept was successful, and after the opening of another branch in Rostock, the first branch in Berlin (Rosenthaler Straße) was founded in 1885.

Wertheim quickly realised the changing demand of the growing city in the period of industrialisation and in 1890 opened the first real department store on Moritzplatz/Oranienstraße in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The shop floor was more generous in size and permitted more elaborate presentation of products for sale, products were put on display, and longer runs allowed lower prices.

However, it increasingly appeared that the limitations, which arose due to the shops' locations within old housing: the rooms were not especially large and made further expansion scarcely possible.

Georg Wertheim furthered his education at the Berlin Art Academy in Sonntagskursen and, with the previously unknown architect Alfred Messel, began to develop the concept of a building designed specifically for the sale of goods. The store was established in Leipzig Street in 1892, and in 1894 began the sale of goods in the first purpose planned and built department store on the Oranienstraße.