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Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH is a German department store chain whose headquarters are in Essen. Up until 30 September 2010 the company was a subsidiary of Arcandor AG (which was known until 30 June 2007 as KarstadtQuelle AG) and was responsible within the group for the business segment of over-the-counter retail. On 9 June 2009 Essen District Court ordered provisional asset administration and protective measures in response to an application for the opening of insolvency proceedings. It also appointed a provisional insolvency administrator. The insolvency proceedings were opened on 1 September 2009. On 7 June 2010 the board of creditors resolved to sell Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH to the investor Nicolas Berggruen. Berggruen had taken over all Karstadt stores by 1 October 2010. This had been determined by Essen District Court on 3 September 2010. On 14 August 2014 it was announced that Karstadt had been completely taken over by Signa Holding of the Austrian investor René Benko, which already owned the majority of the sports shops and premium stores.〔(Financial Times 15 August 2014 )〕 Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH comprises 83 department stores, 4 bargain centres, 2 branches of K Town and the online shop karstadt.de. The 28 sports shops belong to Karstadt Sports GmbH. The three premium stores including Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin which, with a sales area of 60,000 square metres, is both the largest German and second largest European department store belong to Karstadt Premium GmbH. ==History== On 14 May 1881 Rudolph Karstadt opened his first store in Wismar under the name ''“Tuch-, Manufactur- und Confectionsgeschäft Karstadt”''. Karstadt’s strategy of offering fixed low prices in place of the still normal bartering was successful from the start as a result of which he had soon opened branches in 24 towns across Northern Germany. The second Karstadt store opened in Lübeck in 1884. The first customers included Thomas Mann and his brother Heinrich. Further branches opened in Neumünster (1888), Braunschweig (1890), Kiel (1893), Mölln (1895), Eutin (1896) and Preetz (1897). In 1900 Rudolph Karstadt took over 13 stores from his highly indebted brother Ernst Karstadt in Anklam, Dömitz, Friedland, Greifswald, Güstrow, Hamburg (Röhrendamm), Ludwigslust, Neubrandenburg, Schwerin, Stavenhagen, Wandsbek (Lübecker Straße) and Waren (Müritz). Further branches opened in Bremen (1902), Hamburg-Eimsbüttel (1903), Altona (1903), Hannover (1906) and Wilhelmshaven (1908). An early highpoint was the opening in 1912 of the branch in Hamburg’s Mönckebergstraße which, with a sales area of around 10,000 m², was the first such department store in a major German city. Karstadt also moved increasingly into the in-house production of clothing, opening a large material store in Berlin in 1911 and a clothing factory in the following year. In addition to this, a factory for the production of men’s clothing was opened in Stettin in 1919. In 1920 Karstadt took over the company Althoff from Theodor Althoff of Dülmen and transformed the entire group into a limited company. This meant that the Karstadt Group was now also represented by the Althoff stores in Dülmen (opened 1885), Rheine (1889), Borghorst (1889), Bottrop (1893), Bocholt (1893), Recklinghausen (1893), Essen (1894), Münster (1896), Duisburg (1899), Gladbeck (1901), Lippstadt (1901), Coesfeld (1902), Remscheid (1901), Dortmund (1904) and Leipzig (1914). It was only much later however (1963) that the Althoff stores were given the Karstadt name. The branch network had now expanded to 44 and this number grew further to 89 by 1931. After the First World War, Karstadt expanded rapidly and in July 1926 it established the EPA-Einheitspreis-Aktiengesellschaft with which it created a network of low price department stores. By 1932 there were 52 EPA stores. In addition to this, Karstadt acquired further production facilities in order to reduce further its dependency upon suppliers. These facilities included weaving mills, furnishers, printers and abattoirs. In 1929 one of the then-largest department stores in the world was opened on Hermannplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The nine-storey building with around 72,000 square metres of usable space (at that time KaDeWe had less than 30,000 square metres) initially offered work to 4,000 employees. The monumental building also had two 56 metre high towers, a 4,000 square metre roof terrace and several truck lifts as well as its own entrance from the underground railway. It soon became clear, however, that the building was over-dimensioned and, in 1932, a number of floors were empty due to the economic crisis. In 1945 the building was blown up by members of the SS. In 1932 Rudolph Karstadt stepped down from the management of the company following the dramatic decline in sales which accompanied the global economic crisis. A restructuring plan included a reduction in the share capital and the closure of numerous branches and production facilities; Epa AG was sold. In the 1930s the company suffered under the ideological reservations about department stores held by National Socialism. Such stores were generally perceived as a “Jewish invention” and were subject to widespread repression. Karstadt AG had to dismiss 830 Jewish employees, including four board members and 47 branch managers. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Karstadt」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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