Museum für Stadt und Technik Ludwigsfelde

Ludwigsfelde is a pretty young town, first formed in 1936 as a ‘green-meadow’ workers’ settlement,and that has never been able to shed its image of a town without history, even if excavations have attempted to refute this in recent years. Even the construction of a station on the Berlin-Anhalt railway line was unable to stimulate population growth.

The rural paradise came to an end in 1936, when Daimler-Benz set up Europe’s biggest and most modern factory for aeroplane engines. As part of the four-year plan to create a war-focused munitions industry, the factory – and with it one of Germany’s largest accompanying residential settlements – was built in the forest, with a very loose design to protect from aerial attack. In this way, the workers hired could be offered quality accommodation and welfare benefits. On the other hand, however, more than 10,000 forced labourers were made to work in horrendous conditions in the assembly halls.

As a key part of the munitions industry, the factory was destroyed in August 1944, and after the war was over it was rebuilt as the Ludwigsfelde Industrial Plant (IWL). The plant started off manufacturing Pitty, Wiesel, Berlin and Troll scooters, followed by the W50 and L60 truck series, which were a winning East German export. Ludwigsfelde’s local history museum provides a profile over more than 60 years of diverse industrial history on the outskirts of Berlin.