Showcase Exhibition

Advertising sign from the Lande cigarette factory, Dresden around 1930
© Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe

The showcase exhibition takes the example of German-Jewish entrepreneurs to demonstrate the rapid rise of the cigarette in the first third of the 20th century.
The roles of Berlin and Dresden as important centers of the German cigarette industry are illustrated alongside family and company histories. The exhibition allows insight into the innovative advertising strategies of the industry – the companies "Manoli," "Problem," and "Massary" employed well-known advertising artists such as Lucian Bernhard, Ernst Deutsch, and Leonhard Fries.

The exhibition illustrates the effect of the First World War on marketing strategies, the business consolidation of the 1920s, and the "Aryanization" of the few remaining firms under the Nazis