Kommerzialrat Ludwig Naftali Klausner

Ludwig Naftali Klausner was born in Tarnau in Galicia [today: Tarnów in Poland] as the legitimate son of Jakob Klausner and Miryam, née Ettinger. The Jewish family of Jakob and Miryam Klausner had nine children.

Nothing is known about Ludwig's childhood and youth. In 1907, together with his brother Julius Jehuda Klausner, he founded the shoe store Del-Ka in Vienna. His brother was a merchant in Berlin and had married Dora Dvorah Leiser in 1899. Ludwig Klausner was obviously already in a relationship with Ella Leitner at this time, especially as the name Del-Ka is derived from the names Dora and Ella. In 1908, he married Ella Leitner and subsequently had a son and a daughter with her.

The first store was located at Rainerplatz 3 in Vienna's 4th district. The company Del-Ka advertises with a range of shoes at unit prices of 12.50 and 16.50 crowns. In 1910, a second store opens at Rotenturmstraße 12 in Vienna's 1st district. The following year, a branch was added at Alser Straße 9 in Vienna's 9th district, and the head office and dispatch department were relocated to Mariahilfer Straße 47 in Vienna's 6th district. Until I. The branch network in Vienna is expanded by four more locations before the First World War. In 1915, there are branches in Budapest, Trieste, Bielitz [today: Bielsko in Poland] and Czernowitz. Shoe production is already integrated into the business activities during the war through participation in shoe factories, such as Goldschmied & Schanzer Goodyear-Schuhfabrik G.m.b.H. In 1922, the 'Del-Ka Schuhindustrie- und Handels-Aktiengesellschaft' is founded, which takes over Schuhwarenhaus GmbH with the participation of Anglo-Austrian Bank Ltd. The Board of Directors includes the financial expert and advisor Ignaz Seipels Gottfried Kunwald. After the introduction of the Austrian schilling, the share capital amounts to 960,000 ATS.

In the 1920s, the company has branches in Linz, Salzburg, Graz, Klagenfurt, Wr. Neustadt, St. Pölten, Agram [today: Zagreb in Croatia], Bielitz [today: Bielsko in Poland], Budapest, Czernowitz, Krakow, Lemberg [today: Lviv in the Ukraine], Trieste. The company manufactures, trades in and repairs shoes. Del-Ka is one of the largest companies in the Austrian shoe industry alongside Aeterna Schuhfabriks-A.-G. and is the second largest 'branch group' in the shoe trade after Humanic. It owns the shoe distribution company Alfaco AG as a subsidiary. The majority of the share capital is owned by the Klausner family or by companies in which they have a stake, such as Hausschuhfabrik KG Alfred Friedmann and Aeterna, the country's second-largest shoe manufacturer.

On March 12, 1938, Ludwig Klausner witnesses the demise of a free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. With the occupation of Austria, German legislation was adopted and with it the 'Nuremberg Race Laws', according to which Ludwig Klausner was considered a 'full Jew'.

On the day of the invasion, Ludwig Klausner was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to the Dachau concentration camp on April 2, 1938 on the so-called 'Prominent Transport'. While he was in Dachau concentration camp, his wife Ella Klausner died on 10 May 1938. Ludwig Klausner's possessions were aryanized by the National Socialist rulers and the company Del-Ka was merged with Aeterna in 1940 and incorporated into the Creditanstalt-Bankverein.

On September 3, 1938, Ludwig Klausner was transferred from Dachau concentration camp to the Vienna police prison and deported to Buchenwald concentration camp on October 1, 1938. He was released from there on October 28, 1938, on condition that he leave Vienna within eight weeks.