Department store Hirsch

After 1850, the "Manufakturwaren M. Hirsch, Regierungsstraße" can be found in official documents.  Emil Hirsch, the brother of the first owner Max Hirsch, runs the business from 1891 together with his wife Emma and his sons Alfred and Bruno. Later co-owner was his son-in-law Walter Bendit.
In the 1920s, the Hirsch department store was the largest store for women's and men's fashions in Frankfurt (Oder).

The good sales situation ensured an expansion to the three houses of the Regierungsstraße 2-3a. Uniformly, the facades were now designed with completely glazed shop windows. The workforce expanded to 300 employees. Therefore, the Hirsch family bought the Mittelmühle estate near Neuzelle, which was used as a vacation home, operated from 1950 to 1965 as a youth hostel Hanno Günther in the GDR.

At the same time, the family moved into a stately home at Gubenerstraße 16, "Villa Hirsch."

The decline in sales caused by the economic crisis, plus the boycotting of Jewish businesses under Nazi rule, put Emil Hirsch in a problematic position, but he refused to sell his business, a mistake, because fer Frankfurt mayor reported the Aryanization of the company M. Hirsch in 1935. The takeover was leased by the Hähnel brothers, then forcibly sold after the Reichspogromnacht in 1938.

"Old Mr. Emil Hirsch was driven through the city the morning after the pogrom night in his nightgown and with a sign around his neck that said, "I am a Jewish pig." Wolfgang Wüstefeld, who still lives in Frankfurt, saw this on his way to school and reports that he was totally shocked by it. He did not go to school that morning, but turned around and went home again."

Emil Hirsch and Walter Bendit were deported to Sachsenhausen.

The Regierungsstraße was completely destroyed at the end of the war in 1945, and the Oderturm now stands on the site of the Hirsch Kaufhaus.