Tresor is the French word for "treasure" and apparently the German word for "safe deposit box" or something similar.
More importantly, Tresor is the name for a German nightclub and a record label which are both hopelessly intertwined with the world of techno.
Tresor rose out of the ashes of Interfisch/Big Sex Records in 1991. The owners of the label had a club called UFO in Berlin, which opened in 1988 and closed in 1991. After the reunification of Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the UFO crew, including the head honcho Dimitri Hegemann, went looking for a new place to set up a nightclub. They found it in the vault of what was once the largest department store in Europe, Wertheim in Potsdamer Platz. DJ Rok was reportedly the one who found the perfect location in the abandoned building.
Tresor (the club) is actually two clubs for the price of one. The floor you first see upon entry is called Globus, and they play normal house music. The underground floor is the actual Tresor, which resembles more of a concrete box with loud music.
Both Tresor the label, and Tresor the club have a long history of working with Detroit artists. The first release was "Sonic Destroyer" from an Underground Resistance side project called X-101. Eventually, Juan Atkins, Joey Beltram, Jeff Mills, Robert Hood, Eddie "Flashin'" Fowlkes, Blake Baxter, Kelli Hand, Optic Nerve, Drexciya, Daniel Bell and Scan 7 would all release records on Tresor. Plenty of other big name European and Asian talent is on the roster, too: The Advent, Sven Vath, Cristian Vogel, Surgeon, Fumiya Tanaka, and DJ Shufflemaster.
In 2002, Tresor released a compilation called True Spirit, featuring quite a number of unreleased and out of print gems, spanning the entirety of their existence and even going back into the Interfisch years. This was released as three separate 2LP packs and one triple CD box.
gn0sis says I should add that Tresor is the best club in the world. 8)
Unfortunately, 2002 will probably be the Tresor club's last year. In late June, the property was sold off, and the new owners have since informed the club management that the building will be demolished later this year.
What the?! Apparently the Wertheim vault was owned by a Jewish family before World War II, and the German government sold it to its new owner without actually having the right to! MORE TIME TO PARTY!