Take a retail segment in terminal decline on a mature market; add a structural crisis in the inner cities; mix it with some local mismanagement; add a dash of dubious international investment; and what have you got?: the tragicomic world of the German department store.It was therefore with mixed feelings when one learned exactly a year ago to this day that Canada's leading department store operator Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) had purchased Metro Group's unloved daughter Galeria Kaufhof for €2.9bn, including debt.After all, the German trade had only recently experienced Nicolas Berggruen's bizarre and fateful purchase of rival Karstadt. And the last 20 years bear witness to a string of failed foreign investors from Walmart to Marks & Spencer. It seemed at the time as if HBC was dashing into the abyss like a troop of Canadian Mounties in a snowstorm.Twelve months later, our newspaper received a formal invitation to brunch at Galeria Kaufhof head office in Cologne. The principal hosts were Gerald (Jerry) L. Storch, CEO of HBC, and Kaufhof boss Olivier Van den Bossche. Was it all to announce a happy first anniversary, or a rapid return flight to the other side of the Pond?