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Kabarett der Komiker GmbH – KadeKo (BHR: B 36141 / B 51253)

The Kabarett der Komiker (Cabaret of Comedians), or KadeKo, has been described as “one of the most illustrious Cabarets of Weimar Germany.”[1] It was founded in 1924 by the cabaret performers Kurt Robitschek, Paul Morgan, and Max Hansen.[2] The theatre would begin its life in the Charlottenburg district of Kantstraße, only to quickly move (not very far away), due to its popularity, on to the famous Kurfürstendamm, and finally settle at a brand new, 950-seated, cabaret theatre in Erich Mendelsohn’s famous WOGA (Wohnungs-Grundstücks-Verwertungs-Aktiengesellschaft) complex.[3] Although the bombs of the Second World War meant the Mendelsohn hall was lost forever, the location is now home to Berlin’s Schaubühne.[4]

Advertisement for KadeKo, in: Michael Bienert, Erich Kästners Adreßbuch: Café Leon / Kabarett der Komiker

Initially, the cabaret was funny but also political. However, the increasingly tense political environment led this to change: “By 1929, the necessity to fill over 900 seats every night caused Robitschek to adopt a more cautious approach. The bulk of political jokes remained the role of the conferencier, but the rest of the show was made up of songs, vaudeville acts and comic one-act plays.”[5]

Newspapers began to blacklist the theatre and in one instance SA men invaded the cabarets, “leaping on the stage as the cabaret was performing an anti-Hitler satire.”[6] Upon Hitler being named chancellor and establishment of the Nazi dictatorship Robitschek, who was Jewish, would flee first to Czechoslovakia, then to Vienna, and eventually through to New York where he set up the cabaret anew.[7] Unfortunately, Robitschek’s partner, Paul Morgan, did not share his fortune. By the time Robitschek was permanently in the USA, Morgan had been arrested and placed in a concentration camp. He died in Buchenwald on the 10th of December 1938 as a direct result of SS abuse.[8][FJ1]  Max Hansen was initially unable to attain his “Aryan certificate” due to being born out of wedlock. He was officially classified as “half-Jewish” in Nazi Germany.[9] Hansen would eventually emigrate to Denmark and, upon the Nazi occupation there, struggle but finally succeed in attaining certification of “German or kindred blood” (“deutschen oder artverwandten Bluts”) in 1941.[10]

The original KadeKo was taken over first by Dr Hanns Schindler and then, following his death in 1938, by the famous performer, Willi Schaeffers, who was appointed the role by Goebbels’ Reichs Propaganda Ministry.[11] The theatre would be destroyed in an air-raid in 1944.[12]

Bethan Griffiths

[1] ORT, Music and the Holocaust, “Paul Morgan”.

[2] Stefan Frey, “Max Hansen”, in: Lexikon verfolgter Musiker und Musikerinnen der NS-Zeit, edited by Claudia Maurer Zenck, Peter Petersen, Hamburg: University Hamburg, 2013, URL: https://www.lexm.uni-hamburg.de/object/lexm_lexmperson_00003107 [Accessed: 15.5.2022].

[3] “Schaubühne”, URL: https://www.schaubuehne.de/de/seiten/architektur.html [Accessed: 15.5.2022]; Cabaret Berlin, “Kadeko: the Cabaret of Comedians”.

[4] Bezirksamt Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf von Berlin, “Ehemaliges Kabaret der Komiker”.

[5] Cabaret Berlin, “Kadeko”.

[6] Music and the Holocaust, “Paul Morgan”.

[7] Klaus Budzinski, “Robitschek, Kurt”, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 21 (2003), pp. 681–682, URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd116577967.html#ndbcontent [Accessed: 15.5.2024].

[8] Bruno Heilig, former inmate, recalls, “a man stepped out of the row, took off his cap, and went wobbling to the block leader, who was watching the punishment exercises. He said ‘I am sick – I have a fever …’ It is the actor Paul Morgan. The block leader chased him back to the line. The entire block exercises until the whistle blows. Paul Morgan was brought back on a stretcher.”, in: Music and the Holocaust, “Paul Morgan”; German Federal Archive, Memorial Book of „Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933–1945”,

[9] Frey, “Max Hansen”.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Volker Kühn, “Schaeffers, Willi”, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 22 (2005), pp. 520–521.

[12] Ibid.

 

 

Palestine & Orient Lloyd GmbH (BHR: B 49471 / B 55522)

The Palestine & Orient Lloyd GmbH was a travel agency established in 1935. It was entered into the Berlin commercial register on the 20th of March and was owned by Paul Lewinsohn. The company specialised in transport by both train and ship and was located in Berlin Charlottenburg, at Meinekestraße 2. The company was well situated and surrounded by other Jewish businesses, such as another travel company, Makkabiah Transport GmbH which would become the Deutschland-Palästina Verkehr GmbH in 1934, and the newspaper “JüdischeRundschau” (The Jewish Review) where Palestine & Orient Lloyd GmbH used to advertise their services. They also advertised in the “Jüdische Nachrichtenblatt” until at least March 1940.

Letterhead for Palestine & Orient Lloyd, 6th of April 1940. LAB, A Rep. 342-02/ Nr: 60651

Grete Exiner, a former employee of the firm before her emigration in 1938, said later that “the travel office enabled many Jewish inmates of concentration camps and others to emigrate.”[1] Indeed, by 1938 Meinekestraße, had developed into a centre for emigration, attracting people from all across the country from which they were trying to flee.[2]

On the 14th of February 1938, Paul Lewinsohn stood down from his position in the company and on the 10th of November 1938, one day after the beginning of the nationwide anti-Semitic violence of the November Pogrom, Franz Kühn, a judicial clerk, became the sole owner of the company. From 1940, Ossip Pernikoff took over sole ownership of the company.[3] Pernikoff, a Russian citizen with French citizenship and living in France, invested 19,000 RM while 1,000 RM was invested by another person, Dr Kurt Jakobowitz, following German law.[4] In a later lawsuit by Pernikoff’s heirs to retrieve 19,000 dollars after his death in 1952, the corporation was described as being “used by Ossip Pernikoff mainly to assist Germans being persecuted by the Nazis in escaping from Germany. […] Ossip Pernikoff was a Russian Jew who was himself persecuted by the Nazis.”[5]

The company was liquidated around the end of 1944 to the beginning of 1945. A note in the imperial gazette informs that the business had become fortuneless.[6] According to the court case “Pernikoff v. Kennedy” the company had been declared bankrupt even earlier in 1942, following which Nazi Germany “liquidated its German assets, and dissolved the corporation. By order.”[7]

Bethan Griffith

[1] Dyke Susanne, Grete Exiner: papers relating to Palestine & Orient Lloyd travel bureau, 1933–1999, The Wiener Holocaust Library, GB 1556 WL1698, URL: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/9bc587d7-2775-354d-a6f7-e0ad645e7b7a, [Accessed: 15.5.2022].

[2] Kreutzmüller, Christoph, Ausverkauf. Die Vernichtung der jüdischen Gewerbetätigkeit in Berlin 1930–1945, Berlin 2012, p. 337

[3] Pernikoff v. Kennedy, 219 F.Supp. 854 (1963), URL: https://www.leagle.com/decision/19631073219fsupp8541935n [Accessed: 15.5.2022]; Letter from district court, 13th of January 1941, A Rep. 342-02/ Nr: 60651, p. 26.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Pernikoff v. Kennedy, 1963.

[6] Zentralhandelsregisterbeilage zum Reichsanzeiger, 250, 7th of November 1944, p. 3.

[7] Pernikoff v. Kennedy, 1963.

Zum Zauberkönig – BHR A 29407 / A 90265

Charlotte Kroner was the eldest of four “magic sisters.”[1] She had been born to Josef and Leonia Leichtmann on the 5th of April 1882 in Vienna. Her father was a conjuror and magician, and when Charlotte and her three sisters grew up they too decided to enter the magic business, with their husbands, having bases in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, and Munich.

In 1906, Charlotte would inherit her father’s Berlin magic shop (while the other sisters inherited the stores in the other cities) which he had established in 1884, making it one of the oldest magic shops in the city. Zum Zauberkönig (To the King of Magic) could be found in the heart of Berlin, at Friedrichstraße 54.

Der Zauberkönig advertisement, catalogue 1920s/1930s

However, the fortune of Charlotte and her husband Arthur Kroner, and their three daughters, Meta, Erna, and Hilde, changed upon Hitler being named chancellor. Like other Jewish-owned businesses, the Der Zauberkönig came under vicious anti-Semitic attack after being under Charlotte’s ownership for just under 30 years. After the November Pogroms in 1938, the business moved into the non-Jewish hands of the employee, Regina Schmidt. While Erna and Hilde managed to escape to the USA (the latter eventually becoming a well-known stage illusionist), the parents stayed behind with their eldest daughter, Meta. In December of 1942, the business was officially expropriated from the Jewish family and Meta would be arrested, deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on the 26th of February 1943, and there murdered. Following their daughter’s arrest and the loss of their family business, Charlotte and Arthur took their own lives. Charlotte died on the 31st of January 1943 and her husband Arthur died two months later on the 2nd of April.

Erna und Hilde would survive the Nazi terror and later claim against the “German Reich” for the family’s dispossession of the business.[2] Regina Schmidt continued to run the magic shop after the collapse of the Nazi regime but was expropriated in 1952 due to the division of Berlin between the Federal Republic of Germany (West) and the German Democratic Republic (East).[3] Schmidt opened another shop named Zauberkönig the same year at Hermannstraße 84–90 in Neukölln, West Berlin. In 1958, Hildegard [FJ1] Altmann, née Kroner, daughter of Arthur and Charlotte, submitted a “Registration of Restitution Claims against the German Reich and Equated Entities” with the assertion that the company Zauberkönig sold to “a Mr. Schmidt” was “undertaken in the course of the persecution measures under direct coercion by the Nazi party’s Gauleiter for Berlin and the corresponding administrative offices of the Magistrate of Berlin.”[4] This claim for compensation was refused on the grounds that despite the pressure to sell coming from the Nazi state the business went into the control of “the buyer Schmidt.”[5] The Zauberkönig exists still, though the address changed again in 2019 to Herrfurthstraße 6a.[6]

Bethan Griffiths

[1] Julia Weiss, “Nachbarschaft”, in: Der Tagesspiegel, 9th of October 2019, URL:https://leute.tagesspiegel.de/neukoelln/unter-nachbarn/2019/10/09/98887/ [Accessed: 15.5.2022].

[2] Landesarchiv Berlin, WGA Database, “Zauberkönig”, 23 WGA 8222/59.

[3] “Ein Zauberkönig in Berlin seit 1884”, in: Zeit für Berlin, URL:https://www.zeit-fuer-berlin.de/der-zauberkoenig/ [Accessed: 15.5.2024].

[4] LAB, B Rep. 025-02, Nr. 8222/59.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

Speer & Schmidt Buchdruckerei (BHR: A 59148 / A 98019)

The Speer und Schmidt Buchdruckerei printing house was established on the 2nd of September 1921 and was initially located in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, at Ritterstraße 22. Typesetters Otto Schmidt and Mendel Speer registered their open trading company in Berlin’s commercial register, each bringing 10,000 Marks to begin the business. They were joined in partnership by the tailor Benno Wünsch in October of 1922, and the writer Glib Alexiew and the merchant Moses Heller joined them on the 23rd of April 1923. This small publishing house specialised in foreign language books was also connected to the publisher Knigoizdatelstvo russkich pisatlej (Book Publishing of Russian Writers).[1] Alexiew would later describe the place as “a small typography” where seven workers were employed.[2]

Letterhead for Speer & Schmidt Buchdruckerei, 28th of September 1933, State Archive Berlin (LAB), A Rep. 342-02, 40780.

Alexiew would soon return to Moscow in 1923, however, and all contact between him and his former business partners was terminated.[3] He would later be shot, along with authors Boris Pil’njak and Artem Vesely, after being tried for espionage in April 1938.[4]

Signatures of owners of Speer & Schmidt Buchdruckerei, 25th of April 1933, State Archive Berlin (LAB), A Rep. 342-02, 40780

The publishing house, small though it was, survived the “clean up” of the Berlin commercial register which had begun in October 1937, and the company was given a new commercial register number. By September 1938 at the latest, the company had moved to 105/106 Alexandrinenstraße. On the 2nd of December 1938, the company was informed by the district court that Otto Schmidt must take over the machines and inventory, and continue to run the company under his name alone, for, as the letter stated in plain words: “Speer is a non-Aryan (Mischling)…”[5] The same letter also highlighted the increasing financial strain suffered by the company, stating that there were no longer any employees and that “…the company has long since been a small trade enterprise and for that reason alone worthy of deletion [from the commercial register, BG].” The company was liquidated at the end of the year. It is possible that Mendel Speer was living in Berlin’s Pankow district, at Retzbacher Weg 24, in 1939. There was a Mendel Speer registered at that address according to the population census on the 17th of May 1939.[6]

There is scant evidence concerning Speer, but if this is the same man who was forced to have his name stripped from the business then he survived the Nazi anti-Semitic persecution.[7] There is an entry in the Conference on Jewish Claims Against Germany under the name Albert Speer (by unfortunate coincidence the same name as the high-ranking Nazi) for a compensation claim connected to Ritterstraße 22 – the location of the publishing house. It is unknown whether the claim was successful, but it is known that there could be no true compensation for the suffering and loss caused by Nazi violence.

Bethan Griffiths

[1] Karl Schlögel, Katharina Kucher, Bernhard Suchy, Gregor Thum (ed.), Chronik russischen Lebens in Deutschland 1918–1941, Berlin 2016, p. 559.

[2] Ibid, p. 527.

[3] Letter from Speer & Schmidt Buchdruckerei to the district court, 29th of August 1938, LArch: A Rep. 342-02; Nr. 40780, p. 6.

[4] Schlögel/Kucher/Suchy/Thum, Chronik russischen Lebens in Deutschland 1918–1941, p. 527.

[5] Letter from district court to Speer & Schmidt Buchdruckerei, 2nd of December 1938, Larch: A Rep. 342-02; Nr. 40780, p. 7.

[6] Tracing the Past e.V. (Ed.), Mapping the Lives, “Mendel Speer”, URL: https://www.mappingthelives.org/bio/32e79919-d54b-4ca2-8c7f-dc49b93f1b18 [Accessed: 15.5.2022).

[7] Ibid.

Fotofex Kameras – Fritz Kaftanski – HR A 73480

Due to limited resources the research project left the data of many companies unfinished in 2012. Over the years, we managed to fill many gaps. Yet, we still miss lots of information, especially about the companies that were deleted from the register in 1938.

Preparing a chapter on photographs from Berlin for my book on daily life in the Nazi capital, I found that the owner of the camera company, Felix Kaftanski, was Jewish on a fascinating – albeit outdated – website. When I looked the company up in the database, I found we only had the conformation the company was deleted from the register in October 1938 – published in the state gazette (Reichsanzeiger) on November 3rd, 1938.

Berliner Handelsregister (1931), p. 114

According to our standard procedure, the first step is to look up the company in the handbook of Berlin companies: Berliner Handelsregister. Published for the last time in 1931 by the Berlin Chamber of Industry and Commerce, it lists the basic data of all the registered companies in Berlin. For Fotofex it gives the registration Number, the year of registration (1929), address and the name of the sole owner, Fritz Kaftanski.

As we went through all changes published, but did not register any entries for the company until 1938, we can assume that the structure of the company had not changed between 1931 and 1938. What had changed, however, was the name of the street. After his untimely death, the Königgrätzer was given the name of the liberal German foreign minister Gustav Stresemann in 1930 – and was renamed Saarland-Straße – after the Saar region had opted for Germany in 1935.

Advertisement for the Minifex taken from the Website Fritz-Bedrich-Fréderic Kaftanski. History of a Camera Manufactorer: http://kaftanski.free.fr/

Kaftanskis produced respectively assembled a wide range of cameras – from simple box cameras to a very special camera called Minifex. Introduced in 1932, the Minifex was advertised as the smallest camera in the world. Despite also being one of the most expensive camera in the world, it became a long-lasting commercial success. Among others it was known as a spy camera.

Photo of a Minifex with kind permission by Boris Jamchtchick, Zell am See 2024

Under the pressure of the Nazis, Kaftanski moved first to Prague and after the German invasion to France. As his biographer Wim Luijt states, he survived in France and continued producing cameras such as the Minifex well into the 1970s.

Further reading:

Fritz-Bedrich-Fréderic Kaftanski. History of a Camera Manufactorer: http://kaftanski.free.fr/

Ilia Hepner, the Luna Park Grundstücks-Aktiengesellschaft, HRB 23654 and the Lunaterrassen Betriebsgesellschaft mbH, HRB 25015

As one of the many refugees of the Russian Civil war businessman Ilia Hepner, born in Bialystok, came to Berlin in the summer of 1921. Obviously, Hepner had not arrived in the German capital without means. Soon after having bought several apartment buildings, an even larger investment opportunity presented itself when the “Lunapark” came up for sale in March 1922. This amusement park stretched from the end of Berlin’s fashionable Kurfürstendamm to Halensee and was considered one of the largest in Europe.[1]

Entry „Lunaterrassen Betriebsgesellschaft m.b.H“ into the commercial register. Sept. 5, 1926, State Archive Berlin, A Rep 342-0, 59995

Luna Park-Grundstücks AG” was founded to acquire the fairground, followed three months later by Lunaterrassen Betriebsgesellschaft mbH Kommanditgesellschaft, which was fully absorbed into the AG later. From March 1925, Ilia Hepner was the sole director and shareholder of both companies.[2] Under Hepner’s management, the amusement park experienced a second heyday. In addition to new rides and a wave pool that was unique at the time, high-priced raffles, beauty contests and competitions attracted crowds. In 1929, the park celebrated its 25th anniversary with a large programme.[3] By that time, the Lunapark employed some 1,500 staff from spring to autumn.

Photo by an unknown photographer, 1926 Entrance to the Lunapark, State Archive Berlin, F Rep. 290 Nr. II920

In January 1933, Ilia Hepner became seriously ill and was no longer able to run his business. His brother Paul (1872-1937), an authorised signatory for both companies since 1924, was supposed to stand in for him, but was prevented from doing so by members of the Nazi Party. They denied him access to the park, physically attacked and even imprisoned him for some days.[4] When Ilia Hepner died and was buried on the Jewish cemetery in Berlin Weißensee, he had not left a will.[5] Ten relatives scattered across several countries were his heirs. One of them, his brother Joel Hepner (1872-1938), who lived in Berlin, still campaigned for the preservation of the company, but was so threatened that he left Germany in the same month. At the – possibly forced – request of Paul Hepner, the district court appointed a guardian of the estate, which also officially took the business completely out of the hands of the family.[6]

“From Luna- to National Park”, Berliner Morgenpost, December 29, 1933, Beilage, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz Berlin

The National Socialists had been interested in taking over the Luna Park for some time. At a meeting of the NSDAP on 4 July 1933 in the Wilmersdorf town hall, a party comrade presented a project for the “change of ownership and reorganisation of the Luna Park”. As the Berliner Morgenpost reported the Lunapark was to be redesigned as a “national park” by Albert Speer with “Aryan” [i.e. not-Jewish] shareholders. All Jewish employees and members of the Supervisory Board of Luna Park AG were dismissed. In October 1933, the new Management Board initiated bankruptcy proceedings. This was relatively easy to accomplish, as the properties were heavily encumbered with mortgages, interest was due and debts had accumulated. Shortly before the end of the year, the sale to Nationalpark AG was finalised. Although the reopening planned for May 1934 was widely publicised in the local press, the plans had to be completely abandoned – for a projected road leading to the site of the Olympic Stadium.[7] By that time, Albert Speer had already pocketed his fee of 42,000 RM.[8]

By Jutta Fischer

For more information: https://www.jewish-places.de/de, s.v. Ilja, Paul und Daniel Hepner; Familie Jules Hepner

[1] Zum Lunapark: Ingrid Heinrich-Jost, Wer will noch mal ? Wer hat noch nicht? Aus der Geschichte der Berliner Rummelplätze, Berlin 1985, pp. 67-80; Johanna Niedbalski, Die ganze Welt des Vergnügens. Berliner Vergnügungsparks der 1880er bis 1930er Jahre, Berlin 2018, especially pp. 133-147.

[2] Ruling, July 10 1924, HRB 23654, Federal Archive Berlin (BArch), R 8127/7213; Ruling March 7, 1925, State Archive Berlin (LAB), LAB A Rep. 342-02, 49594.

[3] Der Lunapark im Jubiläumsjahr 1929, Berlin 1929.

[4] Sworn statements by various family members, in: LAB B Rep. 025-01,415/51; sworn statement by Alfred Scharff, 1965, in: LAB B Rep. 025-08, 5714/59.

[5] Gravestone in the Jewish Cemetery  Berlin-Weißensee, field F 7, row 21.

[6] Letter from the lawyers Dr. M. Zeller and Dr. H. Lorch, March 24,1933, LAB A Rep. 342, 16673.

[7] Meeting, July 4, 1933, LAB A Pr Br Rep. 057, 417, 3.

[8] Letter by the district mayor of Wilmersdorf, April 14, 1935, LAB A Pr Br Rep. 057, 417,3.

Chemical Plant Albert Mendel – BHR B 24778

Just before World War One pharmacist Albert Mendel, born near Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz) in 1878, moved to Berlin. There he took over the “Luisen Drogerie Eugen Totzeck successor” which supplied pharmacies and hospitals with pharmaceutical products of all kinds. In 1916 he renamed the company into “Albert Mendel Drug Wholesaler”.

Trademark, Berlin 1930

After the First World War, the company began to produce its own pharmaceutical products and market them with the suffix “AMAG”, which stood for “Albert Mendel AG”. Introduced in 1930, the cough syrup Tussamag was particularly successful.

From 1933, the successful pharmaceutical entrepreneur was accused of having expanded his sales by unfair means, including bribing the Association of Berlin Hospitals. Although this was not true, Mendel knew “that as a Jew I would have no opportunity to answer for my actions in a public trial and that they were simply looking for a way to safely expose me to Nazi ‘legal measures’.”[1]

The pressure was intensified by the fact that more and more public organisations were drawing up blacklists ousting Jewish suppliers.  In order to saveguard the company, Albert Mendel and his Jewish partner Hermann Goldberg officially resigned from the board of directors on 6 April 1933. One month later, the company was renamed “Chemische Fabrik Tempelhof”. Shortly afterwards, however, the non-Jewish managing director Paul Preuß informed his two Jewish colleagues that he could “no longer guarantee their safety” and gave them one hour’s notice to leave the company they had built up for good. 

Preuß gave the Westphalian entrepreneur Theodor Temmler a big stake in the company, which was recast in April 1936 under the name ” Chemische Fabrik Tempelhof Preuß & Temmler“.[2] Soon it‘s main product became „Pervetin“ the amphetamin many German soldiers took (and became dependent on) during the Blitz.

While the production of pervetin was discontinued after the war, Albert Mendel’s successful coughing syrup can still be found in German pharmacies.

[1] Sworn statement Albert Mendel. Nov. 7, 1951, Compensation Office Berlin 61434.

[2] Ibid.

For a detailed – albeit German – analysis see our paper “Vor dem Rausch” in Berlin in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 2020

Anne and Fritz Degginger, Fine Women’s Underwear (./. BHR)

The merchant Fritz Degginger, born in Regensburg in 1884, travelled all through Europe as a commercial agent for the high-end textile market. He was in Milan when he was taken by surprise at the news that the First World War had broken out. He travelled back to Germany through Switzerland and would receive a serious head injury while he was a soldier in Serbia. After the war, Degginger worked mainly in the women’s clothing branch, and in 1932, working alongside his wife Anne, and became independent through his shop at Kurfürstendamm 220 – a fashionable address directly opposite the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

Postcard, Poto of M. Krajewsky, Berlin ca. 1933, Entschädigungsbehörde Berlin, 251682

It was doubtless a coincidence that the photographer Hans Schaller happened to photograph Degginger’s business on the day of the blockade (labelled by the Nazis as a “boycott”) on businesses, doctor surgeries, and law firms regarded as Jewish. His picture shows a woman being turned away by an SA guard with a friendly smile.[1]

More than 20 years later, Fritz Degginger remembered how “3 Nazis in uniform” called on him to close his shop. After consulting the police, Degginger refused, resulting in the men returning to threaten him “with the words, that they would beat me on the head with their clubs until brain splattered the ceiling”.[2] Even though Degginger dated these events vaguely at the time after Hitler seized power, it can be assumed that they refer to the 1st of April 1933. The photo was probably taken after the return of the SA men. It can be seen how the curtains across the door are drawn and the shop within is closed. What is unclear, is whether one of the perpetrators perhaps deliberately posed as a friendly guard for the camera.

As the “situation against the Jews continued to escalate,” Fritz and Anne Degginger decided to specialise exclusively in women’s lingerie and moved a couple of doors down to the corner of Kurfürstendamm/Meineckestraße – an area which at this time would develop into a central location for institutions dealing with the emigration of Jews. The business developed very well. However, on the 10th of November 1938, the business was completely destroyed, and many wares were stolen.[3] Just like the other business owners that had been victims of the attacks, Degginger was forced to pay for the repairs to his shop himself. The Retzlaff glazing company sent him a bill of 485 RM on the 19th of November 1938 for changing the windowpanes. It is common knowledge that Jewish retailers were not allowed to reopen their shops after the pogrom. The remaining stock was sold off without the cooperation of the Deggingers, and the shop was rented out to somebody else.

Bill for the replacement of broken windowpanes, 19th of November 1938, Entschädigungsbehörde Berlin, 251682

In the weeks after the pogrom, Fritz and his son Roy Degginger were forced to go into hiding to avoid being transported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In May 1939, the family succeeded in fleeing across the green border to Belgium. Finally, after months of waiting, they were able to emigrate from Antwerp to the USA at the end of 1939. Why the company was not entered into the commercial register, despite having a yearly turnover amounting to more than 250,000 RM remains unknown.

Mert Akyuez & Christoph Kreutzmüller – with warm thanks to the family of Anne and Fritz Degginger!

[1] Photo by Hans Schaller, 1st of April 1933, bpk 30005414.

[2] Solemn oath by Fritz Degginger, 22nd of December 1954; CV of ritz Degginger, 1st of December 1954, Resititution Office of Berlin, 251682.

[3] Ibid.