The Wertheims lost Berlin's Leipziger Platz store under Nazi laws, Germany gave the land to Karstadt in 1991, and Karstadt paid €88 million in 2007

Abraham and Ida Wertheim opened a shop in Stralsund in 1875, and their sons Georg and Hugo took it over in 1876. The firm built department stores in Berlin, and in 1896 it opened the store on Leipziger Platz that was compared with Harrods and Galeries Lafayette. By 1913 it was the largest German company of its kind. After 1933 the Jewish family was forced to give up the business. On 1 January 1937 Georg left the firm, and his wife Ursula, counted as "Aryan" under Nazi law, became principal shareholder; the company was renamed AWAG. Georg died in Berlin on 31 December 1939. In 1951 Hertie bought the majority of the shares, and Karstadt later took over Hertie. The main Wertheim land lay in the Lenné Triangle in East Berlin; a 1988 land swap moved it into West Berlin. In 1991 the German government gave the property to Karstadt, which sold it in 2000 to the investor Otto Beisheim, who built a Ritz-Carlton hotel there. The Jewish Claims Conference claimed the land for the former owners. On 25 October 2005 the federal court in Leipzig rejected Karstadt's appeal over the store site near Potsdamer Platz, where the Tresor nightclub used the old basement vaults. On 30 March 2007 KarstadtQuelle agreed to pay the Claims Conference €88 million and drop its claims to 50 other Wertheim properties. Part went to survivors' programmes and the rest to the heirs. Barbara Principe of New Jersey spoke for about 50 family members.