Belying statememts made to the Jewish Daily Bulletin on january 29 by Paul Hofer Jr., secretary of the F. W. Woolworth Company, the yearly financial report of the company, made public on January 30, indicates a direct relationship between the F. W. Woolworth Company in Germany and the United States.
Mr. Hoferon January 29 told a reporter for the Jewish Daily Bulletin that German Woolworth stores were entirely independent of the American concern, that the two were virtually different from each other and had nothing to do with each other, and that the Woolworth trade mark in used by virtue of a financial arrangement between the German and American officials of the respective companies.
The financial report issued by the Woolworth Company states in part, “Investment in the company’s German subsidiary is carried at $7,091,562.” It is likewise stated that the number of Woolworth stores in Germany, operating under the parent concern in the United States, amounts to eighty-one. According to the report, the F. W. Woolworth Company of Germany falls into the same category as that of the F. W. Woolworth & Company Ltd., of England. The annual financial report for 1933 cited the net income of the domestic and Canadian concern at $28,690,884 exclusive of a non-recurring profit of $1,970,561 from sale of stock of F. W. Woolworth and Company., Ltd., of England.
When these facts were called to the attention of Mr. Hofer Friday, he admitted that domestic Woolworth interests maintained majority holdings in the German concern.
The American Woolworth concern. He said, was owned both by Christian and Jewish stockholders, but the Christian interests predominate.
He said that during the one-day boycott of Jewish stores in Germany a number of Woolworth establishments in that country were closed and the managers of other stores had considerable difficulty with stormtroopers, who insisted that they came under the law of the day.
Regarding the policy of Wooldworth interests in the United States toward the boycott of German goods, Mr. Hofer was not prepared to speak. he said that the determination of the concern’s policies in this respect lay entirely in the hands of the president of the company, B. D. Miller, and that all references to the situation must rest with him.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
