ABSTRACT
German department stores differed from their English and French counterparts not merely on account of their delayed development due to Germany's later industrialization, but also for the extent of the opposition they engendered within the lower middle class, a societal reaction that began in late 1880s and reached its most intense expression during the Nazi period. This chapter discusses the strand of anti-Warenhäuser sentiment through the prewar years of the Third Reich, examining how it interacted with the principal public faces of department stores: their display windows. During the Third Reich, window display architecture in Warenhäuser existed within a complex milieu that had three salient characteristics: the Nazi party's long-standing anti-Warenhaus stance, the regime's desire to create a middle way between consumerism and Bolshevik socialism, and the nation's striving for autarky. A discourse had occurred within German society since 1900 concerning two words used to signify advertising: Werbung and Reklame.
