Hermann Wronker AG
IndustryDepartment stores
Founded1887 (1887) in Mannheim, Germany as S. Wronker and Co.
FounderHerman Wronker
Defunct1934 (1934)
FateAppropriated by Nazi regime
SuccessorHertie Waren- und Kaufhaus Edit this on Wikidata
Headquarters
Frankfurt
,
Germany

Hermann Wronker AG was a German department store chain. Its holdings included the largest department store in Frankfurt before World War II.[1]

Company founder Hermann Wronker was born on 5 August 1867 in eastern Prussia.[2] He started businesses at a young age, opening stores in Bamberg and Coburg, and in 1887 in Mannheim founded S. Wronker & Co. with his elder brother Simon. Hermann left Mannheim in 1891 to found a branch of the business in Frankfurt am Main. Branches later opened in Baden, Hessen, and Alsace.[2] The Frankfurt site was expanded in 1896, but had to be rebuilt following a fire in 1897. In 1921, the business was incorporated as Hermann Wronker AG, which by the end of the decade had become one of the largest businesses in southern Germany after expanding to Nuremberg and within Frankfurt.[2] Its flagship Frankfurt store was known as Kaufhaus Wronker.

In 1934 the company was "aryanized" and the Wronker family was forced to sell. While some members of the family emigrated out of Germany, Hermann Wronker was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942.[1][3][4][2]

References

  1. 1 2 Riebsamen, Hans (7 November 2007). "Lili Wronker hegt weder Hass noch Groll" [Lili Wronker harbors no hatred or resentment]. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Retrieved 17 July 2012. Das Kaufhaus Wronker war vor dem Krieg Frankfurts größtes Warenhaus. Als die Nazis an die Macht kamen, mussten die jüdischen Besitzer emigrieren. (The Wronker department store was the largest pre-war Frankfurt department store. When the Nazis came to power, the jewish owners had to emigrate.)
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Guide to the Papers of the Lili Wronker Family 1843-2002". Center for Jewish History. 2006. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
  3. ↑ Iding, Dirk (2 December 2009). "Es hat nicht gereicht" [It was not enough]. op-online.de. Retrieved 17 July 2012. Die Karstadt Warenhaus AG war eine der Rechtsnachfolgerinnen der Hermann Wronker AG, die 1929 mit der Eröffnung des "Wronker"-Kaufhauses am damaligen Platz der Republik, dem heutigen Freiheitsplatz, diesen Warenhaus-Standort begründete. Als jüdische Familie waren die Wronkers schon 1934 gezwungen, ihre Kaufhaus-Kette zu verkaufen. Seit 1934 firmierte sie unter dem Namen Hansa AG. (The Karstadt AG was one of the legal successors of the Hermann Wronker AG, founded in 1929 with the opening of "Wronker" department store at the former site of the Republic, now the Liberty Square, this store location. As a Jewish family in 1934 Wronkers were forced to sell its department store chain. Since 1934, she went by the name of Hansa AG.)
  4. ↑ "Lili und die Kaufhauskönige" [Lili and the department store king]. Der Spiegel (in German). Retrieved 17 July 2012. Dabei waren die Wronkers einst die Warenhauskönige in Deutschlands Süden. Dann kamen die Nazis und "arisierten" die Warenhauskette, Gründer Hermann Wronker starb in Auschwitz. (It was the Wronkers that were once the department store Kings in southern Germany. Then came the Nazis and "Aryanized" the department store chain, founder Hermann Wronker died in Auschwitz.)


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