The former Isay department store is a listed building in Cologne's Altstadt-Nord district. The office and commercial building at Zeppelinstrasse 4-8 on the corner of Am Alten Posthof 3 was built between 1911 and 1913 to a design by the Cologne architectural firm Helbig & Klöckner. The client was the company Gebrüder Isay.
History edit
1910 to 1933 edit
Until 1910 military installations occupied the area between Neumarkt, Krebsgasse, Breite Strasse and Richmodstrasse with a former Franciscan monastery ad Olivas on the street Am alten Posthof used as barracks. After the acquisition of the area by the city of Cologne, the old buildings were demolished under the city architect Carl Rehorst and Zeppelinstrasse was built across this area. On both sides of the new street, commercial buildings were constructed by renowned architects, including Jacob Koerfer (Schwerthof), Hermann Eberhard Pflaume (Olivandenhof), Carl Moritz (Carl Peters department store), Emil Schreiterer & Bernhard Traugott Below (Schreiterer & Below; furniture store Gebrüder Schürmann), Otto Schulze-Kolbitz (Gustav Cords) and Paul Bonatz (Haus Reifenberg).[1]
The corner plot to the street Am alten Posthof was acquired by the company Gebrüder Isay, a wholesaler in cloth, wool and knitwear founded in 1871.[2] The company commissioned the architectural firm of Helbig & Klöckner with the development of designs. From the preliminary designs, the clients selected a project that had four full stories with nine axes on Zeppelinstrasse and seven axes on Am Alten Posthof. The hipped roof, which terminates at the top, accordingly had four gables on the longer side and three on the shorter side. The main entrance is still located in the center of Zeppelinstrasse, the side entrance on the left outside Am Alten Posthof. The commercial and office building developed by the architects Rolf Helbig, Albert Klöckner and Oskar Rosendah[3]l: 349 f. were by April 1, 1913 ready. At this time, the management of the company Gebrüder Isay, which continued to operate as a cloth, wool and hosiery wholesaler, was in the hands of Adolph, Siegfried and Alfred Isay.[4] The 1930 address book now lists Adolph and Alfred Isay as the owners of Gebrüder Isay. According to this, the company dealt in tricot and hosiery. In addition to the textile goods wholesaler Gebrüder Isay, the property accommodated eleven other companies or offices at this time. In addition to Alfred Wohl's office business, these included a deposit bank of A. Schaaffhausen'schen Bankverein as a branch of Deutsche Bank, the Cologne branch of "Ala" Anzeigen AG, which still had its branch in the building in 1938, the corset business of Gebr. Lewandowski GmbH, the manufactured goods wholesaler Ferdinand Mertznich, the silk goods wholesaler Katz & Levy, the Cologne branch of Telefunken Gesellschaft für drahtlose Telegraphie mbH and offices of the Prussian Land Registry Office Cologne III.
1933 to 1945 edit
After the Nazis came to power, in 1933 the general partnership Gebrüder Isay was transformed into Wistri Gesellschaft für deutsche Wirk- und Strickwaren GmbH. The company, which was subsequently sold below value, traded in 1938 as WISTRI Gesellschaft für deutsche Strickwaren Mengel, Ritter & Co. and was represented by the personally liable partners Ludwig Mengel, Isay's former secretary, and Friedrich Ritter[5] The textile company Mengel & Ritter, which emerged from this company, was taken over and dissolved in the 1960s by the Cologne textile wholesaler F. W. Brügelmann Söhne. Brügelmann had also taken over the Reifenberg house across the street in the late 1930s. [6] [7] The property of Gebr Isay itself housed 16 companies, firms and actions in 1938. These ranged from Ludwig Riebel's fur business and Alfred Tureczek's hairdressing business to a branch of Deutsche Bank, Gewerbliche Schneidergenossenschaft eGmbH, J.B. Neuerbourg & Co. cloth wholesalers, Heinrich Remagen's lighting business and WISTRI, and Erich Ortloff's company for office equipment and supplies. . The owners of the property in 1938 were noted as Adolph and Alfred Isay, Holland.[8] In 1941, the property and building at Zeppelinstraße 4 were transferred to four new owners: Ludwig Mengel, Friedrich Ritter (1/2), and 1/4 each to Franz Weiss and Erich Ortloff.[9]
After 1945 edit
Comparatively slightly damaged during the Second World War, business operations were resumed after the roof structure was rebuilt. From 1956 to 1958, the adjacent site on Krebsgasse/Schildergasse, which had previously housed the police headquarters that had been destroyed in the war, was redeveloped. According to plans by Wilhelm Riphahn, a high-rise building was erected there on Schildergasse, with the theater garage in the rear. As part of this urban redevelopment - in the neighborhood of the new opera house - the commercial building, now also called Ortloff-Haus, was extended by one axis to the east, rebuilt on the inside, raised by one storey and the attic extended. Viewed from Zeppelinstrasse and Am Alten Posthof, the building is now five stories high, while on the courtyard side it is seven stories high.. For the year 1967 the widow Erich Ortloff, Gertraud, L. Mengel and Mrs. H. Ritter can be proved as owners. At the same time, seven parties have their accommodation in the property, including six of commercial nature: the men's outfitter Jos. Arnemann, founded in 1918: 22 , the master furrier Paul Schweigler,: 1113 the ladies' fashion store J. Wahlen, the café together with the confectionery Wilhelm Strick: 1176 , E. Ortloff: 862 and the West German Radio with some offices.: 22 [10]: 1113 [10]: 1176 [10]: 862 . After further alterations in 1982, the building housed - in addition to Erich Ortloff GmbH & Co. KG, the building housed the City of Cologne's Surveying and Cadastral Office until spring 1999. After its relocation, another reconstruction followed.
The Isay department store was entered in the list of monuments of the city of Cologne on November 9, 1984 (monument no. 2757).
Isay family edit
The company founders were the brothers Jacob Isay (born 1842 in Schweich, died 1923) and Moritz Isay (born 1851 in Schweich, died 1906 in Cologne), Sons of the cattle dealer Abraham Isay and Henriette Isay, née Lieser from Schweich an der Mosel. After their retirement, Jacob's sons Adolph (born May 1, 1875 in Cologne, died May 16, 1956 in Rodenkirchen) and Siegfried (1876-1939) continued the business together with Moritz's son Alfred (1885-1948). [11] .
Alfred Isay served in the war and returned traumatized by a serious traffic accident. He began working again in the textile wholesale business Gebr. Isay and in 1920 married Sofie Adelsberger,: 18 f. (born 1897 in Nuremberg) daughter of Kommerzienrat Abraham Adelsberger, a toy manufacturer (Heinrich Fischer & Cie.) from Nuremberg. The couple had a daughter, Ruth Marlis and a son, Walter.: 34 : 18 f. .[12][13]: 34
Alfred Isay fled with his family to Amsterdam in 1933, but Sofie Isay returned to Cologne with the children after one month.: 20 Alfred Isay initially remained alone in Amsterdam and again built up a company there: 28 which was also Aryanized in 1942.,[13]: 28 [13]: 35 The family followed him into emigration in 1934: 25 In 1941 Alfred Isay became a member of the Joodse Raad, which had been created under pressure from the German occupation authorities.[13]: 25 . In June 1942, Ruth Isay was taken to a school building for the first time and held for days. She volunteered to sew SS uniforms in a factory and was released as a result. In February 1943, the family was taken to the Hollandsche Schouwburg. They were able to leave the building through the help of SS-Unterscharführer Alfons Zündler.[13]: 39 In March 1943, the family was again deported to the Schouwburg. Ludwig Mengel, a former tax official who had worked for Isay as a secretary since 1927 and was now a partner in the former Gebr. Isay OHG, was able to get the family to return to their home because of his connection to Ferdinand aus der Fünten. In June 1943, the family was deported to the Westerbork concentration camp. On July 12, Mengel appeared and told the camp commander Gemmeker that a bomb had fallen on the department store, important papers had been burned, and Alfred Isay urgently needed to come to Amsterdam for a meeting. Isay demanded that he could take his family with him. The family took advantage of this circumstance to go into hiding. Different Dutch families took them in separately. Eventually, they managed to survive in hiding.[13]: 43 After the war, his widow and the children took Dutch citizenship. The Jewish star that Alfred and Sophie Isay had worn was given to the Cologne City Museum by their lawyer in the post-war period during restitution proceedings.[12] Alfred Isay's mother-in-law Clothilde Adelsberger survived Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.[13]: 46 Adolph Isay - who had married the non-Jew Theresia Liederer (born December 24, 1880 in Vienna-Rudolfsheim; died September 10, 1953 in St. Anthony's Hospital in Cologne-Bayenthal) in London on March 3, 1907 - survived the Third Reich in hiding in Cologne. .[12] The death of Theresia Isay is reported in 1953 by the engineer Franz Weiss, who now lived in the neighboring house Moltkestraße 1 in Rodenkirchen.[14]
Architecture edit
[[Category:Jews and Judaism in Cologne]] [[Category:1910s architecture]]
- ^ Hans Verbeek: Die Hochbautätigkeit in der Alt- und Neustadt von 1888 bis 1918.
- ^ Elfi Pracht-Jörns: Jüdische Lebenswelten im Rheinland.
- ^ Wolfram Hagspiel: Köln und seine jüdischen Architekten.
- ^ Adressbuch von Köln und Umgegend 1913. Greven’s Adressbuch-Verlag, Köln 1913, II. Teil, S. 235.
- ^ Adressbuch von Köln und Umgegend 1930. Greven’s Adressbuch-Verlag, Köln 1930, 1. Band, I. Teil, S. 451.
- ^ Adressbuch von Köln und Umgegend 1930. Greven’s Adressbuch-Verlag, Köln 1930, 2. Band, IV. Teil, S. 731
- ^ Die Geschichte der unternehmerischen Selbstverwaltung in Köln 1914 - 1997 herausgegeben aus Anlass des 200jährigen Bestehens der Industrie- und Handelskammer zu Köln am 8. November 1997. Klara van Eyll, Industrie- und Handelskammer zu Köln. Köln. 1997. ISBN 978-3-933025-01-2. OCLC 312673492.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link) - ^ Greven's Adreßbuch der Hansestadt Köln und Umgegend 1938. Greven’s Adressbuch-Verlag, Köln 1938, I. Teil, S. 1159.
- ^ HRA 2636 Köln, Textilgesellschaft Mengel & Ritter, eingetragen ins Handelsregister am 14. Mai 1943; Liquidation 13. Februar 1968, auf Moneyhouse.com, abgerufen am 19. Januar 2015
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