Richmodis-Zeitung: Monatsblätter des Alsberg-Eteg-Konzerns. 1930-1931

Richmodis-Zeitung: Monatsblätter des Alsberg-Eteg-Konzerns. Zweiter Jahrgang, Heft 1 (April 1930) through Heft 12 (March 1931). Köln: Alsberg-Eteg-Konzerns, 1930-1931.

4to. 244 pp. consisting of 12 volumes of the Alsberg department store internal monthly journal with orig. illus. covers, trimmed; bound in cloth with gilt title on spine and cover; boards rubbed and bumped, 3 small closed tears, else good.

Profusely illustrated and scarce documentation of the Jewish department store chain, Kaufhaus Alsberg. With over 20 locations, Alsberg was one of the largest and most successful businesses of its kind during the German Weimar Republic. Representing a conglomerate of shops, warehouses, and manufacturers, the company expanded rapidly in the 1920s, building modern stores designed by well-known architects and embracing the newest fashions and technologies of the thriving Republic.

Richmodis-Zeitung relies throughout on surprisingly modern graphic design and appears to have been intended for Alsberg employees, with articles on architecture, lighting, window displays, pricing strategies, sales, fabrication of textiles and home goods, the company’s sponsored sports teams, photographic contests, and a number of Jewish themes, e.g. Jewish literature. Photographers and illustrators are often named.

The Nazis expropriated the entire corporation in 1933. Founder Siegfried Alsberg died in Köln in 1936, but his wife Emma, his son Alfred, and Alfred’s wife Martha were deported and murdered in the early 1940s. Many of the stores the Alsbergs built were incorporated into Aryan businesses and still exist today as urban landmarks throughout Germany.

Not recorded in OCLC.

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