Bundesarchiv Bild 102-07016, Stuttgart, Modernes Warenhaus

Schocken Department Stores (Kaufhaus Schocken) was a chain of department stores in Germany before World War II.

History

The company was founded by Simon Schocken (1874–1929) and

Salman Schocken Salman Schocken or Shlomo Zalman Schocken ( he, שלמה זלמן שוקן) (October 30, 1877 August 6, 1959) was a German Jewish publisher, and co-founder of the large Kaufhaus Schocken chain of department stores in Germany. Stripped of his citi ...

(1877–1959). After Simon had married into the owner family of ''Warenhaus Ury Gebrüder'' in Leipzig, the two brothers enlarged the business to a chain by establishing a second department store in

Zwickau Zwickau (; is, with around 87,500 inhabitants (2020), the fourth-largest city of Saxony after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz and it is the seat of the Zwickau District. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ...

. In 1930, the company (named ''I. Schocken Sons'' since 1907) had become the fourth largest department store company in Germany with 20 stores. After the death of Simon Schocken in a car crash in 1929, his brother was sole owner. The most famous stores are the ones in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

(Aufseßplatz) (built 1925/26, demolished), Stuttgart (→ Schocken Stuttgart, 1926–28, demolished 1960) and

Chemnitz Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt , ) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the 28th largest city of Germany as well as the fourth largest city in the area of former East Germany ...

(1927–30) designed by architect

Erich Mendelsohn Erich Mendelsohn (21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953) was a German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic Functionalism (architecture), functionalism in his projects for department ...

. All three can be seen as milestones in modern architecture. After the rise of Nazism, Salman Schocken was forced to sell his department stores to the Merkur AG (so-called " Aryanisation"). After the war, Schocken sold his regained share of the company (51%) to

Helmut Horten Helmut Horten (8 January 1909 Bonn – 30 November 1987, Croglio, Switzerland) was a German entrepreneur who built up and owned the fourth-largest chain of department stores in Germany: the Horten AG. Early life Helmut Horten was born on Jan ...

GmbH, which later became part of

Kaufhof Galeria Kaufhof GmbH was a German department store chain, headquartered in Cologne. It was a member of the International Association of Department Stores from 1930 to 2010, with various CEOs acting as presidents of the Association over time. U ...

and is currently owned by Metro. In 1931, Salman Schocken founded his own publishing house (later

Schocken Books Schocken Books is a book publishing imprint of Penguin Random House that specializes in Jewish literary works. Originally established in 1931 by Salman Schocken as Schocken Verlag in Berlin, the company later moved to Palestine and then the U ...

) which published books in German and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

.Salman Schocken: Forefather of Haaretz Newspaper and a Modernist in Love With Tradition

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner ...

It later moved to

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East J ...

and the United States. The Schocken family lives in Israel and the United States. Schocken Books is now affiliated with

Random House Publishing Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

. The family still owns 60% of the Israeli newspaper

once owned by Salman Schocken.

History

References

Further reading