1939: The Next Turning Point- World War II

The outbreak of World War II causes the business ties to foreign companies, comprehensively reestablished after WWI, to be ruptured for the second time. Alone War insurance payouts serve to mitigate the significant loss of premiums.

The war, and especially the heavy bombardments of operation “Gomorrah” (carried out by the Allied forces between the 24th of July and the 3rd of August, 1943), hit Hamburg particularly horribly and the firm of Mund & Fester also suffers profound destruction. The office in the Laeiszhof is utterly destroyed in the firestorm along with its entire inventory.

Only some bookkeeping documents, stored in a safe, remain more or less intact. The singed pages of the remaining documents give an inkling of the monstrous heat and annihilating scale of the firestorm. Adolph Mund is able to find makeshift offices in the building of Berenberg, Gossler & Co., but these rooms, too, have suffered bomb damage.