Ludwig Görtz in a shoe store. Neuhauser/ullstein image via Getty Images
Ludwig Görtz, long-time owner and boss of the Görtz shoe chain, has died at the age of 89. His great-grandfather founded the company in Hamburg in 1875, which grew to up to 200 locations and 3,000 employees. In September 2022, several companies in the group filed for bankruptcy, but found a new investor in June 2023.
Shoe king Ludwig Görtz is dead. The long-time owner and boss of the shoe chain of the same name died three days ago at the age of 89. That reported that “Hamburger Abendblatt”.
The history of the shoe empire reads like a corporate fairy tale: In 1875, his great-grandfather Johann Ludwig Görtz opened the first men’s shoe store in the Barmbek district of Hamburg – at that time it was just 14 square meters. A few years later, another store followed in Hamburg, and in 1959 the first branch outside the Hanseatic city in Reutlingen.
At the age of 26, the young Ludwig Görtz joined the family shoe company as a trained industrial clerk. The Hamburg company then expanded and opened additional branches throughout Germany and Austria. In the best times, the company had around 200 locations and 3,000 employees nationwide.
Several branches filed for bankruptcy
But the corona pandemic did not leave the stationary shoe trade unscathed. On September 6, 2022, several companies in the group filed for bankruptcy. However, on June 8, 2023, the company announced that it had found a new investor.
Although Görtz had withdrawn from day-to-day business years ago, he is said to have still been regularly present in the office on Spitalerstrasse in Hamburg.