Alfred Leonhard Tietz

Alfred Leonhard Tietz (born June 8, 1883 in Stralsund; died August 4, 1941 in Jerusalem) was a German-Jewish department store entrepreneur forced into exile by the Nazis.

After the death of his father in 1914, Alfred took over the department store group Leonard Tietz AG with 5,000 employees at the age of 31.

He and his partner Julius Schloss were forced to sell their shares, whose market value had plummeted due to Nazi persecution.

[7][8][9][10] In 1933, Alfred Tietz and his wife Margarete fled Cologne to the Saar region, which was under the supervision of the League of Nations until 1935, for fear of anti-Semitic actions.

[14][15][16] After Alfred Tietz fled the Nazis, the villa was acquired in 1940 by consul Gustav Valentin Roosen.

[17][18] On March 18, 2019, on the initiative of the Rhineland Cologne section of the German Alpine Club, commemorative stumbling blocks (stolperstein) in memory of Alfred Leonhard Tietz and his family were laid by the artist Gunter Demnig in front of the former home at Parkstrasse 61 and at his place of work at Gürzenichstrasse 2