As of: February 28, 2024, 2:33 p.m
By: Elisa Buhrke
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The Karl Rau bookstore in Maxvorstadt in Munich has to close.
© Yasina Hipp
After more than a century, it's over for the Karl Rau bookstore in Maxvorstadt.
The reason: there are no regular customers on site.
An attempt at change was unsuccessful.
Munich - “The decision was anything but easy for us,” says Elena Nietgen, managing director of the Karl Rau bookstore, in an interview with our editorial team.
But more than 100 years of tradition do not save the specialist shop on Theresienstrasse (Maxvorstadt) from closure.
Sales have simply fallen too sharply in recent years, says Nietgen.
Traditional bookstore in Maxvorstadt closes after over 100 years
Karl Rau was a classic specialist bookstore for a long time, explains the managing director.
Due to the proximity to the main campus of the Technical University, the company originally limited itself to selling non-fiction books on mechanical engineering, chemistry, physics and computer science.
But because TUM and its faculties are increasingly moving to Garching, the traditional shop customers have gradually disappeared.
Instead, many regular customers would only order via the online shop.
“We then tried to restructure the store,” says Nietgen.
That means: About two years ago, the bookstore added entertainment and leisure literature such as crime novels, children's books and cookery books to its program.
But the start was “very difficult”.
Nietgen also cannot explain why the new store concept was not accepted.
Maybe, she suspects, because the store was limited to specialist literature for so long that many residents and passers-by didn't even notice the change.
The final line also makes the employees sad: “How are you supposed to feel,” says salesman Rüdiger Teufel, whom our editorial team meets in the store, “there’s a lot of passion in it.”
The store closure also means “a turning point” for his colleague Adrian Wiedmann.
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The bookstore remains an online shop - employees move to other branches
However, the Karl Rau bookstore will not disappear completely: the online shop will remain, so from now on it will only exist as a so-called mail-order bookstore.
“We tried until the end to ensure that the store could stay open,” reports Nietgen.
But in the end, what counted most was keeping the four employees on.
One of them is moving to the company's Augsburg branch, a second to the Bücher Hacker branch in Munich-Laim and the last two will be working at the company's headquarters in the future.
A good two years ago, the bookstore also added children's books and other entertainment literature to its program.
Unfortunately without success.
© Yasina Hipp
It is not yet clear when exactly the last day will be.
Probably at the end of March, but depending on how the sales go, the store may stay open until mid-April, according to Nietgen.
As long as you can buy old books that are exempt from fixed book prices, as well as defective copies and non-book items, you can buy them here at a reduced price.
It is also still unclear who will take over the empty retail space afterwards.
For the landlord, a successor must be compatible with the student dormitory, which is located on the upper floors of the building.