The Kaufhaus des Westens (English “Department Store of the West”), usually abbreviated to KaDeWe, is a department store in Berlin. With over 60,000 square metres of selling space and more than 380,000 articles available, it is the largest department store in Continental Europe. It attracts 40,000 to 50,000 visitors every day.
The store was originally founded in 1905 by Adolf Jandorf, who persuaded the famous architect Emil Schaudt to build his store. It opened on 27 March 1907 with an area of 24,000 sqm. In 1927, ownership changed to the Hertie company. The Hertie Company was responsible for modernizing and expanding the store. They had the ambition to add two new floors but because of the Nazi rise to power in the 1930s their plans came to a sudden halt. During World War II Allied bombing ruined most of the store, with one shot-down American bomber actually crashing into it in 1943. Most of the store was gutted, which caused its closure. The re-opening of the first two floors was celebrated in 1950. Full reconstruction of all seven floors was finished by 1956. Once completed it became a beacon of hope for Berliners. KaDeWe soon became a symbol of the regained economic power of West Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder economic boom, as well as emblematic of the material prosperity of West Berlin versus that of the East.
Between 1976 and 1978, the store’s floor space was expanded from 24,000 sq-m to 44,000 sq-m. Just after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, KaDeWe recorded a record-breaking number of people going through the store. By 1996, with a further floor and restaurant added, the sales area had expanded to 60,000 sq-m. In 1994, the KarstadtQuelle AG corporation acquired Hertie and with it KaDeWe. Most of the floors were renovated between 2004 and 2007 in preparation for the store’s one hundredth anniversary.
