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List of contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
List of Maps
Introduction
1. Travelling Sons of David 1834-1890
2. Iron Girders & Hat Pins 1890-1900
3. Qualified Young Ladies 1890-1910
4. The Kaiser Comes to Call 1900-1914
5. Dear Piece of Homeland 1915-1929
6. Voices of Envy 1929-1932
7.Two Million Hitler Portraits 1933-1939
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the author
John F. Mueller is Director of Studies in History at St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, UK. He has written and presented highly-rated television documentaries in Germany and the UK on the history of consumer culture. He has also been published in The Berlin Department Store: History and Discourse (2013) and Konsum und Gestalt: Leben und Werk von Salman Schocken und Erich Mendelsohn (2016).
Summary
From the emergence of department stores in the late 19th century to the financial disasters of the years following the end of World War I, the history of large-scale retailing in Germany was dominated by a pioneering generation of German-Jewish entrepreneurs who found fortune and influence only to have their livelihoods taken by Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930s.
Drawing on a range of archival sources and private collections, The Kaiser, Hitler and the Jewish Department Store reveals how, contrary to Nazi claims, Jewish-owned department stores were decent employers, popular with customers, and well integrated into the economy. In fact, such institutions were so integral to German society that, when Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazis were forced to abandon their pledge to abolish them. As this revelatory history argues, the end of the Jewish-run store cannot solely be attributed to the rise of antisemitism: it was also the consequence of financial mismanagement and the indifference of the German people.
John F. Mueller reveals the German-Jewish department store as a powerful force in society and politics as well as a leader in architecture and design. His book challenges common assumptions about the relationship between consumer culture, the German-Jewish business community and the rise of Nazism, providing fresh insights into the social history of modern Germany.
Foreword
A revisionist examination of the Jewish department store as a political and cultural force in 20th-century Germany and the rise of the Nazis.
Additional text
John Mueller's exciting new book shows how Jewish department stores were not just a big-city phenomenon but were deeply embedded in the local community in many other parts of Germany in a variety of ways until well after the Nazi seizure of power. Their enlightened employment practices won them many supporters amongst local people. Campaigns against them came largely from the Nazi government, from outside the community. The book provides a powerful counter-argument to the widely believed thesis that popular resentment against department stores for undercutting local retailers was one of the reasons why the Nazis were so popular.
