Wholesale for cleaning and fashion goods - Frank & Lehmann

Leopold Frank, Carl Sally and Louis Lehmann founded a wholesale business for cleaning and fashion goods together in the 1890s in Köln on Hohe Straße. From the early 1930s, the fashion goods manufacturer resided at 37 Unter Sachsenhausen in a magnificent building designed by the famous German architect Peter Behren (a stately city palace for the Köln banker Eduard Freiherr von Oppenheim). Fritz Dagobert Lehmann, son of Louis Lehmann, was born in Cologne on December 11, 1879, also trained as a merchant and joined the company after finishing school. Fritz Lehmann was married to Hedwig Lehmann, daughter of Ferdinand and Amalie Oppenheimer, who was born in Stra&szlig on June 11, 1884. The couple had two sons - Kurt Ferdinand and Heinz Ludwig. After the National Socialists came to power, the business climate for Jewish companies and businesses changed rapidly for the worse. Fritz Lehmann's company and his business partners were also affected. At the end of 1938, in the course of the so-called Aryanization, the company was liquidated and sold to the " arische " Hutfabrik Fritz & Co. ". After the sons Heinz and Kurt had already left Germany in 1936 - Heinz to England and Kurt first to Rotterdam, then to Austria (1937) and finally via the USA - Argentina to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. One month after the loss of their business, Fritz and Hedwig Lehmann emigrated to England and then on to Rio de Janeiro in 1940. Today, four stumbling stones in the Braunsfeld district of Cologne, Friedrich-Schmidt-Straße 52A, commemorate the fate of the Lehmann family.