"In the building where Karl Lüftner's department store was located on the corner of Graben and Bergmanngasse, there was a café on the first floor called the Café Zentral, and you will find in old newspaper articles that this café was something very unusual in Prague: German and Czech inhabitants of Prague met there, which was very unusual. Otherwise, there were only cafés where Czechs met and others where Germans met. There was a sense of togetherness in Café Zentral, which I thought was great. Franz Kafka used to go there. It was an international café. I think it's great that there was a sense of belonging at that time. And I hope it will continue to be like that, that people will exchange ideas as much as possible."
"I think he employed many people, whether in the department stores or the horseshoe factory, and he cared about the welfare of people, not only his large family but other people in his village and in Prague. I think he was a free thinker. He had great ideas at a time when it was not so common. He was just interested in technological advances. His children then continued that, his sons. My grandmother always said: Your great-great-great-grandfather had a department store in Prague that was one of the first with passenger elevators. We saw it on the plans a moment ago: there were two paternosters in the sales rooms. Those are elevators that never stop."
"In my mother's room, there were two old paintings of Karl Lüftner and his wife, Katharina Kutschereuther. They were my mother's great-grandparents (a mistake, she laughs [Karl's wife's name was Pauline Kutschereuther, and they were both great-great-grandparents of Del Missier's mother. author's note]), and my mother had a postcard that showed the Lüftner department store. And I would ask about it now and then. Even my great-grandmother, when she was already mentally confused, always asked: Will you come with me to Jesenice? And Karl Lüftner had a horseshoe factory in Jesenice and a department store in Prague, and based on the postcard, I tried to find out more about the family on the Internet. My grandparents were no longer alive, my great-grandmother was confused, and my mother didn't know much either."
Britta Del Missier was born on March 11th 1964 in Innsbruck as the second daughter of Heidelinde Del Missier, née Nachtmann, and Joseph Del Missier. After graduating school she became an elementary school teacher. Apart from work, she spends her time doing her own genealogic research. Both of her parents have roots in former Bohemia and Moravia, and especially her two-times-great-grandfather Karl Lüftner was a defining figure in the economic world of 19th century Prague and surroundings. He was born on November 23rd 1826 into a family of blacksmiths. Before he was 18, he went to Prague by foot and found work at the company Rott. Starting from the bottom, he slowly worked his way up after the early death of his father and received his own trade licence in 1855. Afterwards he successively established three big stores in Prague and a factory in Jesenice, selling and producing mostly supplies for shoes and leatherwork. Being very open for new technologies, he acquired renown and gave work to many people. The factory, after his death in 1897, was led by his sons and stayed in the hands of the family until World War Two. Apart from his business, Karl Lüftner also founded a large family together with his wife Pauline Lüftner, née Kutschereuther, who gave birth to altogether 13 children. Lüftner had a great sense for his family. He and his wife, for example, looked after the four children of their first daughter Katharina, who fell mentally ill after the death of her husband and wasn’t able to raise her children anymore. The upbringing of Karl and Pauline was, as the great-grandmother of Britta Del Missier remembered, very strict, but also loving. Del Missier plans to further pursue her genealogic research in the future and wishes for more descendants of Germans living in Bohemia and the Czech youth to come into contact with each other and exchange their stories.
