User:Eli185/Julius Klausner

Julius Klausner (born as Jehuda Klausner on March 10, 1874 in Tarnów, Galicia, Austria-Hungary; died on September 8, 1950 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) was the founder of the Leiser shoe company.

Life
He came from a Jewish family in Galicia (Lesser Poland). His father was Jakob Klausner. Jehuda had six siblings, his brother Otto Klausner also became a shoe merchant (Bottina).

Jehuda Klausner grew up in Tarnów, lived briefly in Vienna and came to Berlin in 1889. In 1891, he founded a shoe store in Oranienstraße in Berlin-Kreuzberg with his uncle Hermann Leiser, who had previously been an egg merchant. From 1898, he was the sole owner after marrying his daughter Dora. Julius Klausner opened further stores and soon became the largest shoe entrepreneur in Berlin. His basic business principles were low prices, flexibility and customer friendliness.

From 1933, Julius Klausner was forced to sell 75 percent of his business to the German entrepreneur Bahner. In 1938, he fled first to Switzerland, then to Buenos Aires. In 1945, he received fifty percent of his former business property back in Germany, but remained in Argentina. He died there in 1950 and was buried at the Jewish cemetery on Heerstrasse in Berlin in accordance with his wishes.

Julius Klausner was married to his cousin Dora Leiser, the daughter of his business partner Hermann Leiser. They had three daughters. Margot became a film producer in Israel.

The heirs sold their share of the Leiser shoe store to the Bahner family in 1970.

Honors

 * Schuhhaus Leiser

In the company history of Schuhhaus Leiser, Julius Klausner is always acknowledged in detail as the founder.


 * Stolperstein

In Fasanenstraße in Berlin-Charlottenburg there is a Stolperstein in front of his last home, which no longer exists.


 * Bezirksmuseum Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain

An exhibition panel in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district museum tells the story of Julius Klausner and his first shoe store in Oranienstraße.

Literature

 * Joseph Walk: Kurzbiographien zur Geschichte der Juden 1918–1945. K. G. Saur, München 1988. S. 195

Weblinks

 * Julius Klausner Kreuzberger Chronik
 * Julius Klausner Stolpersteine Berlin
 * Dokumente über Julius Klausner in der Deutschen Digitalen Bibliothek
 * Julius Klausner, geni, mit einzigem digital zugänglichen Foto