ABSTRACT

From their appearance at the end of the nineteenth century until the outbreak of the Second World War, German department stores were among the most successful in Europe, quickly seizing an impressive percentage of retail trade. They were also extremely controversial. Prominent evidence of the country’s new consumer culture, they were castigated by conservative and often anti-Semitic opponents for decimating the country’s legions of small shopkeepers. For Alfred Messel and his generation, the main problem posed by Germany’s rapid industrialisation and the urbanisation which accompanied it was the redevelopment of small-scale, mixed use urban centres triggered by the abandonment of small, family-owned shops and the guild-sponsored craftsmanship they fostered. While the Wertheim store created a reassuring image of historical and social continuity, Erich Mendelsohn in his Schocken store rejected patriotism and conventional luxury in favour of the industrial imagery favoured by the inter-war avant-garde.