On this website you will find an abridged version of the Database of Jewish Businesses in Berlin. The database was set up between 2005 and 2012 as part of a research project at the Humboldt University in Berlin. It is the basis of both the study "Final Sale in Berlin. The destruction of Jewish commercial activity 1930-1945" and the exhibition "Final Sale. The end of Jewish owned businesses in Nazi Berlin”.
The foundation of the database is a complete indexing of all relevant entries of the Berlin commercial register, published in the German state gazette, the "Deutsche Reichsanzeiger und Preußischen Staatsanzeiger”. It includes information collected from many different primary sources, contemporary newspapers, handbooks and directories and other printed material. The database contains key information on more then 8 000 companies that were regarded as Jewish and therefore persecuted from 1933 on. This includes the name of the company, its address, legal form, economic sector, the date of the entry of a company into the commercial register, the date of its deletion, changes of the owners or managers and all references. The database also holds the raw data of another 44 000 companies that could not be identified as Jewish.
The set up of the database is described in detail in the introduction of the study "Final Sale in Berlin. The destruction of Jewish commercial activity 1930-1945”. It was compiled by Eva Balz, Gerd Herzog, Stefan Hördler, Henning Medert, Anne Paltian, Jan Schleusener, Elisabeth Weber, Bjoern Weigel, the author and Peter Woitkowski, who also did the final data check of the database which was programmed by Thomas Meyer.
The database of Jewish Businesses in Berlin was made available to the Centrum Judaicum (Berlin), the State Archive in Berlin, the Leo Baeck Institute (New York) und Yad Vashem (Jerusalem) once the research project was completed. Should you be interested in more information on a company you have found in the online database, you can contact these institutions.
Christoph Kreutzmüller