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Leonhard Tietz (March 3 1849 - November 14 1914) was a German department store entrepreneur and art collector ofJewish origin.[1]
Born inBirnbaum an der Warthe,Province of Posen,Prussia (todayMiędzychód,Poland), Leonhard Tietz was the brother ofOskar Tietz and a founding member of the Tietz Department store dynasty. On 14 August 1879, he opened his first department store inStralsund, with the idea of selling high-quality products at fixed prices for cash.[2] He was the first to introduce amoney-back guarantee. In 1891, a shop was opened inCologne.[citation needed] In 1905, his enterprise was transformed into ajoint stock company.[3]
The Warenhaus Tietz at theKönigsallee inDüsseldorf was entirely designed byArt Nouveau protagonistJoseph Maria Olbrich and opened in 1908.[4] For theTietz Department Store in Wuppertal ElberfeldWilhelm Kreis was hired (1910–11),[5] who also was the architect for their new building in Cologne (at the corner ofHohe Straße and Gürzenichstrasse, 1912–14).
Tietz owned an art collection[6] which included paintings byVincent van Gogh andPaul Cézanne. In 1912 he lent a self portrait by van Gogh and a still-life by Cézanne ("Früchte mit Glas und Porzellanschale") to the famousSonderbund Exhibition in Cologne (Internationale Kunstausstellung des Sonderbundes Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler zu Cöln).[7]
After Tietz's death, his sonAlfred Leonhard Tietz led the Tietz firm. In 1933, theNazi Party came to power in Germany and Jewish businesses were targeted.[8] The Nazi policy of racial discrimination and anti-semitic harassment of Jewish-managed firms hurt the Tietzs' department store and other businesses.[9] The business was renamedWestdeutsche Kaufhof AG. In an "Aryanisation" (the obligatory transfer of Jewish businesses to non-Jewish owners),[10][11] the Tietz family wasforced to sell their shares under market value. They fled Nazi Germany. After the Allied victory, they received some compensation estimated at 5 millionDM.[12]
Today, the department store chainGaleria Kaufhof is the descendant of the tiny shop opened in 1879.[12]
Leonhard Tietz left the company "Winkelmann Nachfolger" for a payment of 3000 Talers. This was the seed money for his new beginning in Stralsund (close to the Baltic Sea in Eastern Germany). On 14 August 1879, Leonhard Tietz opened a small shop in Ossenreyerstrasse 31. I
On 17 March 1905, "Leonhard Tietz AG" (Corporation) was established, its starting capital comprising ten million marks. Six million marks came from Leonhard Tietz, one million each from his co-founders and brothers-in-law Sally and Max Baumann as well as from his cousins Louis Schloss and Willy Pintus. In the year 1909, shares of the "Leonhard Tietz AG" were traded at the Berlin stock exchange for the first time.
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