Robbery in luxury department store in Berlin

KaDeWe, which is considered to be the most famous department store in Germany and is something of a tourist attraction in Berlin, was filled with shoppers on the last Saturday before Christmas, when the robbers entered through a side entrance an hour after opening.

They incapacitated a security guard by spraying teargas in his face, after which they broke glass cabinets containing expensive watches, according to a report in the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper.

Police has not been able to confirm the nature of the instrument which was used in breaking open the glass cabinets, nor have they been able to give an indication of how much was stolen.

“There has been some loot,” police sources said.

One witness saw the robbers speeding away in a dark car which was waiting for them on a side street with the doors open, the paper reported.

Eleven people had to be treated by medical workers at the KaDeWe after reportedly inhaling teargas, according to fire service personnel.

Frequent target

A luxurious “temple of consumption,” as it is referred to in the German media, KaDeWe has been the target of criminal attacks in the past, at least once every ten years. However, the German capital has seen a recent increase in the number of spectacular robberies over the past few months, something that has alarmed retail traders.

Nils Busch-Petersen, CEO of the Berlin-Brandenburg Traders Association (HBB), said: “We are forced to think of the concerned employees and the customers – for whom it is always a shock.”

“But a professional department store like the KaDeWe can naturally deal with such extreme situations and return to business as usual in next to no time,” Busch-Petersen added.

ac/tj (dpa, AFP)