Kurt S. Adler

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Kurt Stephan Adler (June 19, 1921 – November 25, 2004) was a German‑American businessman who founded Kurt S. Adler, Inc., one of the world’s largest Christmas ornament companies. Born into a Jewish family in Würzburg, Germany, he fled Nazi persecution at age 16 with help from an uncle in the United States and moved to Manhattan. He learned English, finished high school, and joined his family in 1938. During World War II he worked as a shipping clerk in the U.S. Army. After the war, he started a business trading goods and soon found a niche in Christmas items. He sold European figurines and snow globes to American retailers, many of which became collectibles. In the 1950s he began selling artificial trees from Nuremberg, and in the 1960s he helped popularize small Italian light strings. He was one of the first to use licensed images from Disney and Warner Brothers on decorations. Life magazine called him “America’s Father Christmas” in 2002. He died of heart failure in 2004, after a battle with Parkinson’s disease. Today his company is run by his four children, with more than 100 employees and offices in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It offers over 20,000 holiday items, retiring about half each year and showcasing them in more than a dozen showrooms worldwide. The firm marked 75 years in business in 2021.