Leonhard Tietz

Born in Birnbaum an der Warthe, Province of Posen, Prussia (today Międzychód, Poland), Leonhard Tietz was the brother of Oskar Tietz and a founding member of the Tietz Department store dynasty. On 14 August 1879, he opened his first department store in Stralsund, with the idea of selling high-quality products at fixed prices for cash.^[2] He was the first to introduce a money-back guarantee. In 1891, a shop was opened in Cologne.^{[citation needed]} In 1905, his enterprise was transformed into a joint stock company.^[3]

The Warenhaus Tietz at the Königsallee in Düsseldorf was entirely designed by Art Nouveau protagonist Joseph Maria Olbrich and opened in 1908.^[4] For the Tietz Department Store in Wuppertal Elberfeld Wilhelm Kreis was hired (1910–11),^[5] who also was the architect for their new building in Cologne (at the corner of Hohe Straße and Gürzenichstrasse, 1912–14).

Tietz owned an art collection^[6] which included paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne. In 1912 he lent a self portrait by van Gogh and a still-life by Cézanne ("Früchte mit Glas und Porzellanschale") to the famous Sonderbund Exhibition in Cologne (Internationale Kunstausstellung des Sonderbundes Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler zu Cöln).^[7]

After Tietz's death, his son Alfred Leonhard Tietz led the Tietz firm. In 1933, the Nazi 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 renamed Westdeutsche Kaufhof AG. In an "Aryanisation" (the obligatory transfer of Jewish businesses to non-Jewish owners),^[10][11] the Tietz family was forced to sell their shares under market value. They fled Nazi Germany. After the Allied victory, they received some compensation estimated at 5 million DM.^[12]

Today, the department store chain Galeria Kaufhof is the descendant of the tiny shop opened in 1879.^[12]