| Original caption: “Four Nazi troops sing in front of the Berlin branch of the Woolworth Company store during the movement to boycott Jewish presence in Germany, in March, 1933. The Hitlerites believe the founder of the Woolworth Company was Jewish.” Nazi activists in Berlin on Saturday, April 1, 1933, demonstrating and protesting during the nationwide anti-Semitic boycott and propaganda campaign targeting Jewish businesses and shops in Germany. 4 chanting or singing Nazi pickets, 2 of them in paramilitary “Brownshirt” uniforms blocking the entrance to a store on Königstraße belonging to the allegedly Jewish-owned F. W. Woolworth chain. On Saturday, April 1, 1933, at 1000 Hours – in some places even the evening before – a boycott of Jewish businesses began. Everywhere in German cities, uniformed, sometimes armed Sturm Abteilung (SA; “Storm Troopers”), Hitlerjugend (HJ; “Hitler Youth”) and Stahlhelm (“Steel Helmet”) veterans organization stood in front of Jewish shops, doctors’ offices and law firms and prevented any customers from entering all day long. Signs and posters demanded: “Germans! Defend yourselves!” “Do not buy from Jews!” “The Jews are our misfortune!” “Avoid Jewish doctors!” “Do not go to Jewish lawyers!” Other uniformed members of the same groups also spread these slogans with chants and loudspeaker vans in the streets. But the regime had overlooked the fact that this day fell on a Saturday and thus on the Jewish Sabbath, on which observant Jews were advised not to work. Therefore, many Jewish shops remained closed or closed early anyway. The SA often blocked locked rooms and shop windows. As in the weeks before, these were often smashed in deserted side streets and rural areas, the displays looted, and the owners mistreated. Despite the ban, this also affected shops owned by foreign (especially Eastern European) Jews. Citing expected “disturbances in the administration of justice,” the Reich Commissioners of the judicial administrations of Bavaria and Prussia had, “with surprising uniformity,” issued bans on Jewish lawyers and forced judges on leave the day before. In some cities, armed SA broke into court buildings and expelled any Jewish people or those they considered to be Jewish. They also occupied the offices of the Reich Association of German Industry and forced the Jewish managing director and Jewish board members to resign. Courageous customers of Jewish shops were deliberately intimidated and threatened with violence and reprisals. In some cities, such as Annaberg in Saxony, SS members stamped their faces with a stamp bearing the inscription “We traitors bought from Jews.” In the evening, the boycott was called off and the guards withdrawn. Due to the inactivity of the population, it was not continued as planned after a 3-day break, but was officially declared over on April 4. The Jewish daily Bulletin on July 2, 1934, reported, “Woolworth Head Silent on Nazi Boycott – Byron D. Miller (December 30, 1875 – May 18, 1960), president of F. W. Woolworth Company, sailed early yesterday aboard the Bremen, North German Lloyd liner, for Europe. He left without clearing up two questions on the status of the Woolworth concern regarding the Hitler government.” “When accosted by the Bulletin reporter shortly before sailing time, Miller was profuse in thanking this newspaper for its courtesy, but remained adamant in refusing to answer questions.” “‘Is it not true, Mr. Miller,’ he was asked, ‘that the F. W. Woolworth Company recently announced that it was buying no more goods from Nazi Germany?’” “‘Thank you for your courtesy,’ responded the head of the concern, ‘I am answering no questions.’” “‘Is it not true that your branch stores in Germany have widely advertised themselves as being owned and operated by Christians, and is it not equally true that a fair percentage of your stockholders in this country is Jewish?’ he was queried.” “‘Thank you for your courtesy,’ he replied.” “Nor would Miller state whether the trip, which includes Mrs. Miller and their son, Byron S., was for business or vacation reasons.” “The F. W. Woolworth Company in Germany is one of the most thriving of the larger department store chains. It frequently has been attacked as being the property of Jews.” “Woolworth interests have suffered badly from the Nazi-anti-Nazi crossfire, having been up for boycott in Germany because of its alleged Jewish ownership, and having been picketed in New York by both Nazi and anti-Nazi factions. The firm has been accused by the former of having boycotted German goods and by the latter as having failed to cooperate with anti-Nazi boycotters.” “Of late the company has maintained an absolute Silence on its attitude toward Nazi Germany. The silence fell after a number of Woolworth officials had issued conflicting reports, which later resulted in embarrassment to the concern.” The Northern coastal City of Bremen became home to the 1st F. W. Woolworth Co. GmbH store in 1927. The new Bremen store was quickly joined by branches in Offenbach, Brilon, Heiligenhaus and Berlin. The opening was well timed. In the mid 1920s Germans had developed a great love for all things American. The United States was seen as ultra-modern. Its culture set Berlin’s trends and fashions. Local people flocked to Woolworth’s and filled the cash registers with pfennigs and reichsmarks. By the end of 1927 the German company had 7 stores, including 1 in Berlin. The profit generated was used to finance further openings. The American Founders engaged and trained local people to create a self-sustaining formula. By 1934 the chain had grown to 82 stores, balancing prime City centre locations large enough to rival the department stores, and smaller outlets geared to the needs of rural communities and small towns. During 1932, a frenzy of correspondence between the German company’s headquarters in Bellevuestrasse, Berlin and 233 Broadway, New York, expressed concern at the changing political scene in Germany. Where 5 years earlier they had celebrated their “American-ness,” now they feared this was becoming increasingly unfashionable. The National Socialist Party had developed a strong following during the Economic Depression. They criticized the crippling reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles after the Great War. They also ridiculed the American-led Dawes Plan, that had brought an end to hyper-inflation in 1923-4 by loading the country with debt. They pointed out that the Wall Street Crash had hit German investors much harder than Americans. Woolworth executives reported anti-American sentiment and recommended that the chain should become “more German.” American executives struggled to find a response. They considered the brand to be neutral and their German subsidiary to be largely self-managing, recruiting and developing its own people. They also struggled to understand anti-American sentiment at a time when they were investing heavily in the German economy, not only through the store openings and the employment that they brought, but also by buying very large quantities of manufactured goods through the sourcing operation in Sonneberg. The local management was given a degree a discretion, but with no clear understanding in New York of how this would manifest itself or why it was needed. Weeks later shocking pictures brought a rude awakening in New York. American Newspapers carried images of SA soldiers picketing the German stores. The editorial and captions called these men “Hitler’s storm troopers” and caused great concern for stateside investors and associates. A war of words followed. The pickets complained that members of the American management were Jewish. The offices in New York and Berlin issued statements denying this. The press releases explained that while anyone could own shares in a public company, the Chairman of the Board, Charles Sumner Woolworth (August 1, 1856 – January 7, 1947), was a Methodist. The family could trace its roots to the Pilgrim Fathers. In fact some other senior American executives had faced quite the opposite criticism. An ugly streak of anti-Semitism had long been suspected and denied. A Woolworth Executive, Earle Perry “Chuck” Charlton (December 20, 1926 – May 24, 2015), is the grandson of Earle Perry Charlton (June 19, 1863 – November 20, 1930), 1 of Woolworth’s Founders. Chuck observed in his book “The Charlton Story” that the former Charlton Superintendent, Simon Kapstein (1886-1971), was dismissed from the management of the San Francisco store because “New York office had decided the decided that they didn’t want a Jew to manage one of the largest stores in the United States.” A footnote attributes the remarks to Kapstein’s unpublished autobiography. In the months that followed, the Nazis passed new laws that were intended to protect local industry and curtail the power of foreign corporations. The legislation prevented overseas firms for taking the profits they made in Germany out of the country, and placed constraints on the way subsidiary companies were supervised. As a result New York was forced to give its Berlin office a far greater degree of autonomy. It rose to the challenge, proving that the 7-year-old company had already laid strong roots. Little is known about the settlement that ended the picket. A surviving New York cinema travelogue, which was made in 1936 to mark the Berlin Olympics, includes a sequence with a narration that starts out “Here is a familiar site from home” before describing the fine selection of “Adolf Hitler tea sets for fifty Pfennigs – complete” in a Berlin Woolworth’s windows. So the settlement was made prior to the August 1936 Games. New York executives were frustrated by the interruption of their links to Berlin. By 1938 the balance sheet omitted $1,992,399.27 in unrealized dividends from the venture. German turnover would have taken sales over the 1,000,000,000 mark that year. The Annual Report held out the hope that the political situation in Germany would soon be ‘resolved’. When it came, the “resolution” had its share of irony. The Germans had used the giant Sonneberg facility as an arsenal, hoping that its American roots would protect it from aerial bombardment. It was razed to the ground in 1945, and was never rebuilt. Many of the stores faced a similar fate. 66 of 82 branches, accounting for over 80 percent of commercial trading space were destroyed, mainly in 1944 and 1945. This level of destruction far outweighed the impact of the Blitz in Britain, where just 6 percent were lost. Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command argued that the bombardment of Nazi German cities helped to end the war more quickly. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1794.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.86 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 3004 x 2133 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | Scherl |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 1, 1933 |
| Location | |
| City | Berlin |
| State or Province | Berlin |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | Bundesarchiv |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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