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It is the fashion house that has shaped the lifestyle of millions of Germans for decades like no other.
With 456 stores, it can be found in all major German cities and 98 percent of Germans know the brand: C&A.
But very few people know that there is a large family behind its success: the Brenninkmeyer family.
With an estimated fortune of more than 25 billion euros, they are one of the richest families in Europe.
But little is known about the entrepreneurial family in public.
For "Germany's Big Clans - The C&A Story", it was possible for the first time to win over members of the entrepreneurial family for a television interview.
They themselves tell the story of their family, which has its roots in Mettingen in Westphalia.
Their ancestors lived here as poor farmers before some of them came up with the idea of working as itinerant cloth merchants in neighboring Holland in the 16th century.
This is also where the beginnings of the clothing empire lie: the founding brothers Clemens and August Brenninkmeyer set up a permanent store in Sneek, Holland, in 1841 and named it after their first names: C&A - Clemens and August.
Since that day, C&A has grown into one of the most important players on the European fashion market - and has always remained in family hands; now in its sixth generation.
Along the way, they have repeatedly succeeded in creating innovations: they democratized fashion in Germany by making ready-to-wear clothing in fixed sizes a mass success; they did away with strict dress codes in the 1960s when they helped the miniskirt and the bikini to make a breakthrough; in the 1990s, they overcame a crisis on their own that had brought their company to the brink of disaster.
But their family history also has dark chapters, such as the family's opportunistic behavior in Nazi Germany.
First broadcast: Tuesday, September 20, 2016, 8:15 p.m. on ZDF.
