It is no secret today that Hitler didn't like the Jews, in fact he hated them and wanted them out of Europe. In Germany, a hundred years ago, Jews were a part of everyday life, doctors, scientists, bankers, lawyers and many others and some were very wealthy. The Nazis preferred Germany for the Germans, Aryans, and in their eyes Jews were foreigners. They were not blue eyed, blond adonis.

When the Nazi party took over Germany in 1933, they immediately set about removing Jews from all walks of public life. Jews were sadly removed from many jobs in the public sector such as the civil service and teaching or forced to work only as consultants as can be seen here: . However there were many Jewish owned businesses, some successful and much like today, a boycott on Jewish business was enforced. There were even calls for Jews to "Go back to Palestine". Ironic as today many Europeans are saying get out of Palestine.

A simple boycott of Jewish businesses was unacceptable, because some of the businesses such as the Herman Teitz department store, were very successful. Hermann Tietz, the co founder of the Herman Teitz department store, was born in Poland and he was the first to carry out the idea of the department store in Germany. The Berlin Ka-De-We store was one of their stores. Try and boycott the network and you cut off your nose to spite your face. So what do you do?

The Nazis came up with Arisierung or Aryanization, or the transfer of Jewish owned property to non-Jews, meaning make those businesses Aryan. There were two distinct phases, Voluntary which was from 1933 to Kristallnacht (1938) and Forced which was after Kristallnacht.

Under "Voluntary Aryanization" the Nazis forcefully encouraged Jewish businessmen to sell their businesses at a fraction of their value, often as low as 20 to 30%. As it was they were facing economic and social discrimination. One of the companies that was voluntarily forced to sell out under these terms, was the Herman Teitz Department store. But Houston we now have a problem. This was a well know company and their logo was well known. You cannot have a Jewish sounding name. So the Nazis changed the name to Hertie (Herman Tietz). Check out the image.


Under this "voluntary" situation, about two thirds of Jewish owned businesses either closed their doors or sold out.



Along comes the 1938 violent Kristallnacht pogroms (November 9-10) which showed Jews that they were no longer at home in Germany, as if by now they had any doubt. But in the aftermath of the events, on 12th November, the German government issued "The Decree on the Elimination of Jews from German Economic Life". This law effectively barred Jews from operating stores, agencies and trade. They were forbidden to sell goods or services of any kind. The "Decree on Utilization of Jewish Assets" of Dec 3rd set a time limit for the transfer and set a value of the sale of the firms, at a fraction of their market worth. Every remaining Jewish business was given a non-Jewish person to oversee the immediate sale to non-Jews. Their fee was almost the same as the amount of the sale and was paid by the former owner. This meant that the Jewish owner came out with next to nothing. As an example the "Jos. Koenigberger Tuchfabrik Company", was forced to sell to "Tuchfabrik Meissner & Co. K.G."