People in a restaurant at the KaDeWe luxury department store Berlin Germany. Berlin’s most famous trademark department store is KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens) – or department store of the West. It is Berlin’s shopping paradise, a favourite, easy to spot landmark on Wittenberg Platz. With 60,000sqm, the equivalent of nine football fields, 380,000 articles, 40,000 visitors a day, this is the legendary, largest department store on the continent. The department store, owned by Jewish retail entrepreneur Adolf Jandorf, first opened on Wittenberg Platz in 1907 with a 24,000sqm retail surface. Designed by architect Emil Schaudt, it served the increasingly affluent middle class neighbourhood of the new Tiergarten district. In 1927 it was bought by the Warenhaus Hermann Tiez AG from whose initials the German retail giant HERTIE gets its name becoming part of the group. Founders of HERTIE, the Jewish family Tietz, in business since 1882, made retail history by pioneering the new business model, acquired by Hermann during his time in the US; large turnovers at small profit and selling at fixed prices. Tietz bought Adolf Jandorf’s store – KaDeWe - by 1926. It was at that time the largest department store in Europe with a 128 million RM turnover and 18,000 employees. In 1931 two floors were added to the original five and more extensions came in the 1990s, particularly the top of the world rooftop and Wintergarten where the self-service restaurant is today.