Dortmund‘s eastern city center has lost an institution.”/>
The retail landscape on Kaiserstrasse in Dortmund’s eastern city center has lost an institution. © Dieter Menne (A)
1 minute reading time
In a large shop window on Kaiserstraße there is a plain poster that announces the end: “Dear customers,” it reads, “after careful consideration, we have decided to close our traditional business after over 104 years. This decision was not easy for us as we really valued the time we spent with you and the support you gave us.”
With these words, Küchenstudio Branz says goodbye at Kaiserstrasse 74, one of the oldest shops on the shopping street in Dortmund’s eastern city center. On June 20, 1920, in the midst of the turmoil of the young Weimar Republic, the Oelder factory owner’s son Wilhelm Branz founded his business at Kaiserstrasse 52. This is what it says on the Branz website. In 1925 it moved to its current premises.
Branz has been an integral part of the business world on Kaiserstrasse since 1920. © Sophia Varga
In the decades that followed, Wilhelm Branz’s descendants built the business into, in their own words, “one of the best-known household goods stores in Dortmund”. Washing machines and ovens were sold there, and later entire fitted kitchens. The shop area was expanded several times.
A long successful Dortmund company history, which now ends in the fourth generation: Wilhelm’s great-grandson Thomas Branz closed the business on October 1st. “All current orders will of course be processed completely,” says the notice in the shop window.
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