In the summer of 2020, Harald Wohlfahrt said he began calculating various scenarios. Even the worst case. What if the Christmas markets, which are so important for sales, were canceled due to Corona? Just a few months later, that is exactly what happened – and in December, Wohlfahrt and his company Käthe Wohlfahrt fled under the state protective umbrella in order to avert bankruptcy. “That was a difficult decision,” he says a year later. In retrospect, it was “the only chance”, but: “You don’t really want to have experienced the whole of last year.”
A dealer of Christmas decorations who is as good as broke shortly before Christmas and who will still be around one Christmas later: To stay in the picture, that sounds like a Christmas miracle – if this second Christmas weren’t so different from before Used to Corona times. The family company Käthe Wohlfahrt, with its 280 employees, is also feeling this. Again, in a way.
Instead of a Happy New Year, they were threatened with a downward spiral
Whereby: Compared to what senior boss Wohlfahrt said in his Rothenburg office about the past Christmas season, the current one almost goes through as bombastic. Instead of a Happy New Year, the company and family were threatened with a downward spiral. “I don’t wish that to anyone,” says Wohlfahrt. Long-term partners and service providers suddenly asked for advance payment, worried about getting stuck on unpaid bills, although “we were actually healthy”. The provisional administrator of the SZ also confirmed that the economic hardship was mainly due to the consequences of the pandemic. The inside was right, only the outside was gone when Germany stumbled into a winter lockdown that tore holes in the books of many companies.
By upholding the Christmas tradition, the family business has found a niche internationally.
(Photo: Maximilian Gerl)
Käthe Wohlfahrt’s idea was once considered crisis-proof. By upholding German Christmas tradition, the company has found its niche internationally. Perhaps best imagined as a wholesaler with two pillars; as a full-range supplier that lives from locals and tourists alike, from year-round and seasonal business. Käthe Wohlfahrt operates 15 shops in Berlin, Oberammergau, York, Bruges and Barcelona. In November and December, when tinsel and crib figures are particularly in demand, there are usually numerous Christmas markets.
Head-high Christmas trees and wooden pyramids dominate the sales rooms
Especially in the headquarters in Rothenburg ob der Tauber there is Christmas Eve all year round. The so-called Christmas village extends over four houses, in the shop with around 1000 square meters of retail space there is a risk of overstimulation in every corner. The rooms are dominated by glowing Christmas trees or man-high pyramids. Smokers from the Ore Mountains are lined up on the wall, glass balls, finely painted wooden figures, and there are reflective sounds from the ceiling.
A Christmas museum attached to the shop explains Advent decorations through the ages. And because Rothenburg, world-famous for half-timbered facades, was once unimaginable without holidaymakers, cuckoo clocks tick in a covered courtyard and beer mugs shine. However, travelers are rarely in town on this gray December day. A small group has the market place to themselves.
The entrance to the Christmas village in Rothenburg ob der Tauber.
(Photo: Maximilian Gerl)
In the past year, the company recorded losses of 70 percent across all business areas. Too much of. The rescue brought a redevelopment plan in the spring. Since then, Wohlfahrt has shared management with his children Aska, Kenta and Takuma. One shop was closed and 20 employees had to leave. Financial help came from relatives and friends. In the end there was hope that things would look better again. “If you had asked me in September how do you see the view,” says Wohlfahrt, “then I would have said very clearly: great.”
Wohlfahrt is particularly angry about how unprepared Bavaria rushed into the fourth corona wave
Then, despite all the warnings, the fourth corona wave built up – and Christmas markets, for which Wohlfahrt had long since ordered goods and set up stands, like so many showmen and market people, were canceled or banned at short notice. At Käthe Wohlfahrt, you put your disappointment about this on two pages, which the senior boss will hand over the table at the end of the conversation. Above all, he is annoyed at how unprepared Bavaria and Germany stumbled into the Corona winter. “We had heard again and again from politics that Christmas markets were coming,” he says. They would have relied on that. And the promised help has not yet been improved. He doesn’t want to moan, but Wohlfahrt wants to ask one question: “Who bears the damage?”
It all started with a coincidence. In 1963 Wilhelm Wohlfahrt wanted to give American friends a music box in Stuttgart. Because these were only available in packs of ten at wholesale, he tried to sell the remaining nine in a US Army barracks by moving from door to door. The military police promptly arrested him – but also recommended selling the music boxes at the officer’s wives’ charity bazaars.
Wohlfahrt followed the advice. A year later he and his wife Käthe went into business for themselves, and in 1977 they moved to Rothenburg. The company then became more international under his son Harald Wohlfahrt. A photo shows him at a tourism fair in Japan in the early 1980s, next to his future wife and disguised as Santa Claus, in summer.
When Christmas Eve is over, the work continues
They still believe in Käthe Wohlfahrt at Christmas. This time it will not be as bad as last year, also thanks to the shops and markets abroad, some of which, according to Takuma Wohlfahrt, generate sales like 2019: “It’s going really well there.” Nevertheless, he and his siblings would have “imagined their entry into the company to be completely different”. But they would have learned a lot in this year of crisis, including things “that we will hopefully not have to apply again”.
One family, one passion: Part of the company’s rescue plan is that the children of Fumiko and Harald Wohlfahrt – Kenta, Takuma (from left) and Aska (right) – join the management team.
(Photo: Käthe Wohlfahrt)
But the renovation will proceed more slowly than expected. The lack of income limits the scope for investment. Among other things, online sales, which have so far contributed little to sales, are to be expanded further. From 2024 on, the third generation wants to run the business alone.
When Christmas Eve is over, work in Rothenburg will continue. At the beginning of the new year, Christmas decorations have to be ordered for the next season, in-house developments have to be commissioned from manufacturers, and trade fairs have to be visited. And in Rothenburg, too, there might be more going on. The welfare hope that there will then be a more reliable concept in the fight against Corona than this winter. But that’s also what Christmas stands for: for hope – as a light in gloomy times.