when: july 2011 with: Bart I admit, an abandoned department store doesn't sound very interesting. And you're right, it isn't! I have been to places way more exciting than this one. But that changes once you're aware of the rich history that comes along with the Hertie company. Here's some of it: The company Hermann Tietz, founded by Oscar Tietz with the capital of his uncle Hermann Tietz , opened its first store on 1 March 1882 in Gera . It was called "yarn, buttons, trimmings, white and woolen goods shop Hermann Tietz" and already had some features of modern department stores, such as fixed prices, no deferral or cover letter and a diverse, cross-industry offerings. The abbreviation of the company name Hertie was during the Nazi era to the official designation, since the Jewish Tietz name should no longer be performed. He sat out the first letter of the previous company name together Her Man Tie tz. As part of the " Aryanization "of Jewish businesses in the so-called Third Reich in 1933 marked the Dresdner Bank Georg Karg as a managing director of the department store group. 1939/1940 bought on Georg Karg Hertie. Together with the largest conducted under the name Hertie department store ( Hertie in Munich , Station Square) Karg contributed to some of the biggest department stores in Germany. 1970, (as one of the first customer loyalty program at all) introduced the Gold Card customers who also served as a credit card. She was free and in the 1980s had 350 000 subscribers . The golden customer card became a generic term for many similar programs. As part of this was taken over by Karstadt in 1996 with the club for Karstadt Karstadt - merged Hertie customer card, and from 1998 to 2002 Karstadt MasterCard. From 2002, the remaining subscribers HappyDigits card was offered After the department store group had expanded into the 1970s, rapidly and many new branches, even in small and medium-sized cities had been opened, sales fell in the mid-1980s, a massive fall. So had the Hertie Group until about 1984 or 123 department stores and retail outlets. Only in the following years, were numerous, often only a few years earlier, opened department stores closed. The purchase of goods and Hertie GmbH was founded in 1994 by the " Karstadt AG acquired, "which in 1999 merged with the mail-order" Quelle Schickedanz AG & Co ", and was thus part of the" Arcandor AG. " Then, all Hertie stores either as "Karstadt" renamed, closed or sold. Only the Munich department store and a store in Berlin-Neukölln business ran until September 2007 as the Hertie. text: from Wikipedia