KaDeWe

KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens, 'Department Store of the West') opened in March 1907 in Berlin by Adolf Jandorf as one of the first European department stores conceived from the ground up as a 'palace of consumption' — a six-floor flagship on Wittenbergplatz designed by Schaudt & Schmieden in Berlin Renaissance style. The store was acquired by Hermann Tietz in 1927 and was severely damaged during WWII Allied bombing in 1943; rebuilt and reopened in 1950 with the original Wittenbergplatz building preserved. The KaDeWe vocabulary settled around several distinguishing things: the seven-floor flagship with its iconic ground-floor cosmetics-and-accessories hall, the famous sixth-floor delicatessen 'Feinschmecker Etage' (the largest gourmet food hall in continental Europe), the seventh-floor Wintergarten restaurant under the glass-and-steel atrium roof, and a department-store buyer list that ranges from every major luxury brand (LVMH, Kering, Richemont, Chanel, Hermès) through to contemporary independent designers and the major streetwear brands. The 2018-2023 Rem Koolhaas/OMA architectural renovation has been one of the defining department-store refits of the 2020s. KaDeWe is owned by Central Group (the Thai-Austrian retail conglomerate controlled by the Chirathivat family) and the Signa Holding bankruptcy estate, with the Central Group taking full operational control in 2024. The store operates exclusively from the Wittenbergplatz Berlin flagship and the KaDeWe Group's two sister stores Alsterhaus Hamburg and Oberpollinger Munich, plus the KaDeWe e-commerce platform. The Wittenbergplatz flagship, which spans approximately 690,000 square feet across seven floors, is the largest department store in continental Europe and one of Berlin's defining cultural-tourist destinations.