the underground platform to the entrance. In 1913 the Wertheim empire was the largest German company of its kind. The success soon also aroused envy, and because most shopping complexes like Wertheim were in the hands of Jewish family companies, there were many versatile campaigns against the shopping centres. It was insinuated that they worked with false weightings, provided inferior goods, exploited employees, and demoralised customers. The Wertheim family tried to counter and work against such criticisms with special quality and security provision for their employees. Nazi persecution of Jews In 1933, the Jewish Wertheim family were forced to "Arianise" their company, i.e. to surrender their company to an "Aryan." On 1 January 1937, Georg Wertheim left the business, but the Wertheim family attempted to avoid losing control of the company by making Georg's wife, Ursula, the principal shareholder since she was considered "Aryan" under Nazi law. The company was declared as German and renamed as the “Allgemeine Warenhandels-Gesellschaft” (General Merchandise Trading Business), or AWAG. Georg Wertheim died on 31 December 1939 in Berlin. Legacy After the Second World War, Wertheim in 1949 was ousted from the DDR, and in 1951 in West Germany the Hertie-Konzern bought the majority of the shares and continued the business under the Wertheim name. The relatives of the family received some small compensation and relinquished all claims to the shares of the company purchased by Hertie. In 1984, Hertie acquired the rest of the Wertheim stock. For a long time, the shop on the corner of Steglitzer Schlossstrasse and Treischkestrasse was of greatest importance. In the 1960s it was largely expanded, which led to the restructuring of a whole residential quarter (in the direction of Schildhornstrasse). In the following decades a large Karstadt-shopping centre and other shopping centres developed on the Schlossstrasse/Bornstrasse corner next to Kaufhaus Wertheim, where for a long time already had stood Kette Held’s, later Hertie’s shops. In 1994 the only remaining Wertheim store on Kurfuerstendamm together with the Hertie business were taken into the possession of the Karstadt company. The descendants of the Wertheim family today live in Germany and the USA. They filed claims for restitution for some of the property that had been stolen from them under the Nazis. A large claim was resolved in 2007. KarstadtQuelle agreed to pay $117.5 million (88 million euros) in Holocaust related compensation. See also Wertheim department store This article has been