Johannes Bähr

Ingo Köhler

The Hermann Tietz family business was one of the pioneers of the German department store industry. After the National Socialist takeover, the Jewish owners were forced to give up their company. Hermann Tietz became Hertie. The troubled past of this major department store brand of the West German "Economic Miracle" lay in the dark for a long time. In this study, Johannes Bähr and Ingo Köhler shed light on the anti-Semitic agitation against the owners of the Hermann Tietz Group, the "Aryanization" of their company assets, the fate of the Tietz family after their ousting from the company and the development of the Hertie Group up to the disputes over restitution and compensation in the immediate post-war years. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including previously inaccessible documents, a detailed picture emerges of a department store history caught between the poles of persecution, loss and responsibility.

How the Department Store Group Hermann Tietz Became Hertie

Persecuted, “Aryanized”, Compensated?

Hartmut Berghoff

Germany and the United States, Past and Present

Varieties of Family Business

Gary Cross

Jan Logemann

In the middle of the twentieth century, a new class of marketing expert emerged beyond the familiar ad men of Madison Avenue. Working as commercial designers, consumer psychologists, sales managers, and market researchers, these professionals were self-defined “consumer engineers,” and their rise heralded a new era of marketing. To what extent did these efforts to engineer consumers shape consumption practices? And to what extent was the phenomenon itself a product of broader social and cultural forces? This collection considers consumer engineering in the context of the longer history of transatlantic marketing. Contributors offer case studies on the roles of individual consumer engineers on both sides of the Atlantic, the impact of such marketing practices on European economies during World War II and after, and the conflicted relationship between consumer activists and the ideas of consumer engineering. By connecting consumer engineering to a web of social processes in the twentieth century, this volume contributes to a reassessment of consumer history more broadly.

Marketing between Expert Planning and Consumer Responsiveness

Consumer Engineering, 1920s–1970s

Ingo Köhler

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