Wikipedia
Wertheim may refer to:
- Wertheim (surname)
- Wertheim am Main, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
- Wertheim (company), a company that manufactures vacuum cleaners
- Wertheim (department store), a chain of German department stores. The Wertheim group was founded by Georg Wertheim
- Wertheim's hysterectomy
- Wertheim Piano, an Australian brand of piano
- Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge, a protected wetlands on Long Island, New York
- Wertheim & Co., an investment firm
Wertheim was a large department store chain in pre-WWII Germany. It was founded by Georg Wertheim and operated four stores in Berlin, one in Rostock, one in Stralsund (where it had been founded), and one in Breslau.
The chain's most famous store, on Leipziger Platz in Berlin, was constructed in 1896. It featured 83 elevators and a glass-roofed atrium, and was one of the three largest department stores (Warenhäuser) in Berlin, the others being Hermann Tietz and Kaufhaus des Westens. Brian Ladd called it “the crown jewel of the main shopping street." The building was badly damaged in WWII and fell in the no man's land between East and West Berlin after the division of the city. The ruins were demolished in the 1950s. The company was subjected to the Nazi Aryanization policies in the 1930s. Jewish employees were forced from their positions by government mandate. 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. In the end this was unsuccessful, even though they divorced to keep the shares in purely "Aryan" hands. The family was forced to sell all their shares at reduced prices to "Aryans" and in 1939 the store was renamed AWAG, an acronym for Allgemeine Warenhandelsgesellschaft A.G. (General Retailing Corporation). For many years there were two remaining stores in Berlin which operated under the Wertheim name, even though they were owned by Karstadt. The flagship store was on the Kurfürstendamm. It was built in 1969-71 and was converted to a Karstadt in 2008. The other store was on the Schloßstraße in the Steglitz district. It was demolished in 2009 for construction of a new shopping center.
Wertheim is a brand of domestic vacuum cleaners and floor care products.
The Wertheim brand name is owned by Godfreys and sold in Australia and New Zealand exclusively through Godfreys.
Wertheim is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
- Abraham Carel Wertheim (1832-1897), Dutch banker and philanthropist
- Dick Wertheim (died 1983), American tennis linesman
- Eric Wertheim (born 1973), American naval expert, columnist and author
- Ernst Wertheim (1864-1920), Austrian gynecologist
- Georg Wertheim (1857–1939), German merchant
- Géza Wertheim (1910-after 1957), Luxembourgian tennis player and bobsledder
- Guillame Wertheim, see Wiedemann effect
- Herbert Wertheim, American inventor, scientist, educator and clinician
- John Wertheim (born 1968), American lawyer and politician
- Juliusz Wertheim (1880-1928), Polish pianist, conductor and composer
- L. Jon Wertheim (born 1970), American sports journalist and author
- Lucy Wertheim (1883–1971), English art dealer
- Margaret Wertheim (born 1958), Australian international science writer and commentator
- Maurice Wertheim (1886–1950), American investment banker, chess player, and philanthropist
- Micha Wertheim (born 1972), Dutch stand-up comedian and satirist
- Pierre Wertheim (1888-1971), French World War I flying ace
- Rosy Wertheim (1888-1949), Dutch pianist, music educator and composer
- Theodor Wertheim (1820-1864), Austrian chemist