By the 1920s, Leipzig’s Brühl street was one of the world’s great fur-trading centers, handling roughly one-third of global fur commerce. Its commercial identity was closely tied to the city’s Jewish population: Russian-born fur magnate Chaim Eitingon opened a branch there in 1893, and Jewish Leipzigers were disproportionately represented in the fur industry, with 8.7% working in the trade compared with 4.2% of Leipzig’s population overall. The district’s fur houses, department stores, and financial networks therefore became a visible emblem of Jewish economic life in Germany. After the Nazis came to power, this success made the Brühl a target. In 1938, under the regime’s forced “Aryanization” campaign, Jewish-owned fur firms and department stores were stripped from their owners and transferred to non-Jewish control. The seizure was not an ordinary commercial takeover but state-backed dispossession: businesses built over decades were confiscated, their owners pushed out, and the district’s Jewish commercial character effectively destroyed. The episode illustrates how the Nazi regime converted fashion commerce into an instrument of racial persecution and economic plunder. Although the Brühl remained associated with fur trading until the 1930s, its earlier international prominence and Jewish identity were shattered by the expropriations and the Holocaust.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1930s
The Nazi Seizure of Leipzig’s Jewish Fur Empire
Brühl fur district and Chaim Eitingon’s fur-trading firm / 1930s
By the 1920s, Leipzig’s Brühl street was one of the world’s great fur-trading centers, handling roughly one-third of global fur commerce. Its commercial identity was closely tied to the city’s Jewish population: Russian-born fur magnate Chaim Eitingon opened a branch there in 1893, and Jewish Leipzigers were disproportionately represented in the fur industry, with 8.7% working in the trade compared with 4.2% of Leipzig’s population overall. The district’s fur houses, department stores, and financial networks therefore became a visible emblem of Jewish economic life in Germany. After the Nazis came to power, this success made the Brühl a target. In 1938, under the regime’s forced “Aryanization” campaign, Jewish-owned fur firms and department stores were stripped from their owners and transferred to non-Jewish control. The seizure was not an ordinary commercial takeover but state-backed dispossession: businesses built over decades were confiscated, their owners pushed out, and the district’s Jewish commercial character effectively destroyed. The episode illustrates how the Nazi regime converted fashion commerce into an instrument of racial persecution and economic plunder. Although the Brühl remained associated with fur trading until the 1930s, its earlier international prominence and Jewish identity were shattered by the expropriations and the Holocaust.
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