TODAY IN BERLIN: OSKAR TIETZ'S LAST RITES
On This Day in Berlin
On January 17, 1923 telegraph service from Swiss Klosters informed Berlin’s large newspapers about the death of Oskar Tietz. With his passing, Berlin lost a man who gave it one of its most resplendent department stores: the fabulous, wondrous Kaufhaus Tietz in Leipziger Straße.
Like his brother, Leonhard, and uncle Hermann, Tietz - born to a carter’s family from Birnbaum an der Warthe (today’s Miedzychod in Poland) - was a typical self-made man of his time. His career in sales was made possible by his shrewdness, his knowledge of the market and financial supports from relatives who had already made it.
His first own department store stood in Gera - it opened in March 1882 with the financial backing of uncle Hermann. His brother, Leonhard Tietz, famously set up his business is Stralsund.
Oskar’s ambitious plan to create a department store on one of Berlin’s main streets and in the direct vicinity of the main competition, the Wertheims, worked so well that shortly before Warenhaus Tietz opened in the Prussian capital, the resplendent and worshipped Warenhaus Wertheim on Leipziger Platz had decided to reduce their prices. To which Tietz responded with a pledge that “he will always sell so cheap”.
But his department store in Leipziger Straße was anything but cheap: its glass-curtain facade modelled on those in Brussels and Paris attracted crowds and gave the store the air of elegance and modernity. With 2,500 sales assistants (male and female) Tietz’s customers could be certain to be well taken care of.
When he died, the body was immediately dispatched to Berlin, so that the well-respected citizen could be buried at the Jewish Cemetery in Weißensee. The funeral was attended by many Berlin and national big-wig, who honestly mourned the man. He was also mourned by many Berliners, for whom going to “Tietzens” was an equivalent of a grand day out.
