Ludwigsfelde is an independent medium-sized town in the north of the
Brandenburg district of Teltow-Fläming with almost 30,000 inhabitants.
It is around eleven kilometers south of the Berlin city limits and
around eight kilometers east of Potsdam in the Berlin agglomeration. The
town charter has existed since July 18, 1965.
The main town of
Ludwigsfelde, which gave the entire town its name, is located on the
Teltow plateau, while the eleven villages that were incorporated as
districts between 1997 and 2003 are mainly located in adjacent lowlands.
Districts such as Ahrensdorf and Gröben emerged in the 12th century with
the German Ostsiedlung as colonist villages. The core city is a new
foundation from 1750/1753 under Frederick the Great in the course of
internal colonization. With the construction of an aircraft engine
factory by Daimler-Benz in 1936, Ludwigsfelde received the decisive
impetus for the development of today's industrial city.
Around
80% of the population lives in the core city, which is characterized by
technology-intensive branches of industry, especially in the areas of
automobile production and aerospace technology. In the village
districts, which cover 87% of the total area (approx. 110 km²),
agriculture still dominates. The natural villages, some of which are
located in the Nuthe-Nieplitz nature park, also have a share in the
tourist boom that has spread to parts of the southern Berlin area since
German reunification.
The list of monuments in Ludwigsfelde and the list of ground
monuments in Ludwigsfelde include the cultural monuments entered in the
monument list of the state of Brandenburg.
Alter Krug, the oldest
surviving building in the city centre. A half-timbered house built in
1753, which was used continuously for gastronomy from then until 2013.
Goltz'sche Villa from 1902, monument protection since 1999
Heinrich
Heine Monument by the sculptor Waldemar Grzimek, inaugurated in 1956.
At the cemetery on Thyrower Weg, on the outskirts towards Siethen:
Memorial from 1951 for murdered and perished forced laborers and
concentration camp prisoners from Genshagen. Memorial stone right next
to it to commemorate the communist resistance fighter Arthur Ladwig, who
was murdered in Brandenburg-Görden prison in 1944. Next to it is another
memorial stone for other resistance fighters. Memorial stone from 1995
to 19 murdered women from the Ravensbrück concentration camp
Memorial
plaques at three collective graves of 127 women and men who died when
their forced labor center was bombed: one for the Czech and one for the
Italian victims
Listed ensemble (various buildings, horticulturally
designed open space, and pump house north of the facility) of the former
State Educational Home of the City of Berlin in Struveshof, which was
built between 1914 and 1917 (today LISUM, State Institute for Schools
and Media Berlin-Brandenburg).
Farm worker's house with outbuildings
in Siethen
Genshagen Palace with 7.5 hectares of parkland, built
between 1880 and 1882 as a manor house, today the Genshagen Foundation –
Berlin-Brandenburg Institute for German-French Cooperation in Europe.
The representative building is used, among other things, by the federal
government for state visits and political work meetings.
The Church
of St. Michael in the wooden house settlement was built between 1953 and
1955 as the first sacred building in the core city of Ludwigsfelde.
Listed medieval fieldstone churches and village churches in Ahrensdorf,
Genshagen, Gröben, Groß Schulzendorf, Kerzendorf, Löwenbruch, Siethen
and Wietstock.
The cultural center of the city is the culture house from 1959, which
has a large hall with 500 seats and a cabaret stage. Events of all
kinds, such as exhibitions, theater performances and concerts, take
place here. In May 2005, the city inaugurated the hourly oak sculpture
by the artist Franziska Uhl on the Rathausplatz in front of the
Kulturhaus. The work of art is reminiscent of the so-called hourly oak
that was legendary in Brandenburg and felled in 2004. The striking oak
tree stood on the autobahn near Ludwigsfelde and was named after the
drivers who, in GDR times, needed a Trabi from there to get to the
center of East Berlin in an hour. In 2006, director Gerd Kroske shot the
documentary film Diestundeneiche for RBB.
The Ludwigsfelde City
and Technology Museum, which opened in 1994, has been housed in the
restored former station building since 2001, with collections on the
history of the city and exhibits from Ludwigsfelde production.
The traditional motor scooter meeting of the historic IWL scooters "Pitty", "Wiesel", "Berlin" and "Troll" takes place in Ludwigsfelde every two years.
By plane
BER Airport (IATA: BER) is about 20 km east of
Ludwigsfelde and can be reached in less than half an hour via the
motorway or by regional train from the Struveshof train station.
By train
Ludwigsfelde station is on the north-south Anhalter Bahn and
is served by regional trains on the Wittenberg - Berlin route.
Ludwigsfelde-Struveshof station is on the Berlin railway ring and has
east-west connections between Potsdam and Königs Wusterhausen via BER.
There is no possibility to transfer between the two railway lines.
By bus
On the street
The A10 motorway (southern Berliner Ring)
runs right through Ludwigsfelde and has several exits in the
Ludwigsfelde area.
You have the usual supermarket and drugstore chains, but no special shops that are worth a detour.
Anyone who appreciates the location between the motorway, logistics
centers and truck washes will find a few drop-offs like
1 Plaza
Inn Ludwigsfelde Berlin South, Kastanienweg 4, 14974 Ludwigsfelde.
Phone: +49 337 88530.
2 Motel 24h Berlin, Kastanienweg 2, 14974
Ludwigsfelde. Phone: +49 337 82062106.
The moist, fertile lowlands and the dry plateaus of Ludwigsfeld attracted settlers very early on, as found in animal bones, pottery shards and hearth stones in Jütchendorf, for example, show. The list of monuments of the state of Brandenburg lists a number of sites in almost all districts, including settlements from prehistory and early history, resting and working places from the Mesolithic, a large stone grave from the Neolithic, settlement sites from the Bronze Age, as well as burial grounds and settlements from the Iron Age . Furthermore, settlements at the time of the Roman Empire have been proven. After the Suebi, the Elbe-Germanic branch of the Semnones, emigrated towards Swabia in the 5th century, Slavs moved into the area, which was probably largely empty of settlement. From the Slavic Middle Ages there are archaeological monuments almost everywhere in Ludwigsfelde. The first German medieval settlements emerged with the expansion of the country in the course of eastern colonization in the 12th and 13th centuries Century.
The western districts of
Ludwigsfeld belonged to the border area to the east for a long time.
The rivers Nuthe and Havel formed the border between the Slavic
tribes of the Heveller in the Zauche and the Stodoranen in the
Teltow, who played a decisive role in the founding of the Mark
Brandenburg in 1157 by the Ascan Albrecht the Bear. Shortly after
the founding of the Mark, the von Gröben family from Gribehne
(Saxony-Anhalt) responded to the Ascanians' call for settlers for
the new country and founded the village of Gröben in 1170, which is
probably the oldest part of Ludwigsfeld. The Cistercians, who in the
12./13. Century in techniques such as fishing or the mill
construction were leading and supported the development of the
Ascanian margraves missionary and economic support, were also active
in Ludwigsfelde: 1242 the jointly ruling margraves Johann I and Otto
III transferred. At the instigation of Heinrich von Steglitz and his
nephew, the current district of Ahrensdorf was transferred to the
Lehnin monastery.
The landlords, who determined the
development of the districts and also the beginnings of the two late
founding colonies of the core city up to the early modern period,
belonged to the best-known Brandenburg nobility and aristocratic
families. These included the Torgow, Gröben, Thümen, Schlabrendorf,
Boytin, Alvensleben, Knesebeck, Hake, Scharnhorst and Jagow
families.
The core
city itself was not built until between 1750 and 1753. On the area
of the Damsdorf desert, Frederick the Great had two colonies or
establishments set up as outlying works and settled by 12 “small
foreign landlords” in the course of internal colonization and
repopulation (repopulation of abandoned places). One establishment
belonged to the Genshagen estate under Captain von Haacke and was
named the Damsdorf desert. The other colony was on the Löwenbruch
district under the landlord and Kurmärkischen chamber president
Ernst Ludwig von der Gröben (1703–1773) and was named after his
middle name Ludwigsfelde.
It was not until the Brandenburg
community reform in 1928 that the two colonies merged, initially
under the name Damsdorf. Just one year later, on February 22, 1929,
the name was changed to Ludwigsfelde due to residents' wishes.
Another reason for the change was the Ludwigsfelde station on the
Anhalter Bahn, built in 1886, which had made the name Ludwigsfelde
much better known than the name Damsdorf. The name Damsdorf is only
preserved today in the name of the forest area Damsdorfer Heide
north of the city.
The adjacent Pharus map from 1903 shows
both parts of the founding of the core city, which in the 19th
century was still significantly less important than many of its
current districts. For example, in 1800 it was said about
Ludwigsfelde: "Colony near Löwenbruch, which makes a place with
Damsdorf". Only after the connection to the Anhalter Bahn and then
especially with the first industrialization in the 1930s did the
core city overtake its current districts and explode in population
compared to the stagnating villages.
Between 1997 and 2003 one of the largest
excavations of a medieval deserted village in the new federal states
took place on the premises of the Preußenpark Ludwigsfelde /
Löwenbruch industrial park on an area of 25,000 m². The
investigations were aimed at the previous Damsdorf settlement.
Analyzes showed that the traces of a two-aisled wooden church were
built around 1180, the remains of wood from a fountain were built
before 1240 and a stone church was built around 1250. The medieval
fountain was reconstructed and in 2000 in the Prussian Park, its
first symbolic groundbreaking ceremony on November 1st It was
inaugurated in 1992.
The village was first mentioned in 1375
in the land register of Emperor Charles IV as Danstorff prope
Trebbin. In 1413 there is an entry as the dorffere Damstorff and in
1479 there was already talk of the half wusten veltmarck zu
Domstorff. In 1540 the village is finally recorded as a desert: the
wuste veltmarcke Dambstorff, also in 1644, again in the spelling
Damstorff. According to Gerhard Schlimpert, the village fell into
desolation at the end of the 15th century and in 1610 there was only
a sheep farm on the desolate Feldmark. As with the Reichenwalder and
Müncheberg districts or parishes of Dahmsdorf, Reinhard E. Fischer
etymologically derives the name Damsdorf from the designation "after
a man with the German personal name Thomas (biblical name, from
Hebrew), Middle Low German" Domes, Domas "" .
Johann von
Torgow, Herr zu Zossen, was founded in 1413 by Burgrave Friedrich
VI. from Nuremberg (later Friedrich I of Brandenburg) with levies
from the customs to Berlin and several surrounding villages,
including Damsdorf. According to documents from 1462 and 1472, the
village was owned by the Lords of Torgow, which also includes
today's Ludwigsfeld districts of Genshagen, Kerzendorf and
Löwenbruch as well as Kleinbeeren, Rangsdorf and today's Berlin part
of Steglitz. It is unclear why Damstorf fell desolate. Possibly the
abandonment of the village was related to the extinction of the von
Torgow family, which is countered by the fact that all other Torgow
estates continued to exist.
The two establishments in Damsdorf and
Ludwigsfelde were established in 1750/1753 primarily as spinner
colonies that stretch yarn for the textile factories in Berlin and
Brandenburg. In addition, the settled families practiced some
agriculture. To Ludwigsfelde belonged "3 fields, each of which had 3
Wispel Aussat." Both colonies emerged southeast of today's train
station in close proximity to each other, only separated by a
street, with Ludwigsfelde at the still existing Alte Krug. The Alte
Krug from 1753, which was rebuilt several times and originally had
thatched roof, is the oldest building in the city center that still
exists. The monument has been home to dining facilities since it was
founded.
It is not known whether the two small colonies were
affected by the Seven Years' War between 1756 and 1763. What is
certain is that today's districts such as Gröben suffered hard from
the devastation and looting of the war. The Gröben church book
contains the entry:
"1760 on 11., 12. On October 13th and
13th, Gröben was visited by a few strolling Austrians, along with a
number of the Imperial Army. On what occasion the place not alone at
700 thousand. There was pillage, but the inhabitants were also
looted and their horses were taken away from them. Likewise, the
church and the rectory have not been spared. "
- Theodor Fontane:
Walks through the Mark Brandenburg, Spreeland
In 1791
Ludwigsfelde included "11 fire places, 9 Büdner, 1 Kruger and 59
souls". 1805 lived in both colonies, which "actually formed one
place [...]", a total of 85 inhabitants. After the suicide of Major
a. D. Karl Wilhelm von der Gröben on November 29, 1805 the male line
of this family went out and through Elisabeth von der Gröben,
married to Wilhelm Leopold von dem Knesebeck (1735–1803) from Karwe
am Ruppiner See, Löwenbruch came and with it the Ludwigsfelde colony
to the von dem Knesebeck and in 1823 passed to Wilhelm von dem
Knesebeck in a will. Only with the land reform of the Soviet
occupation zone in 1945 were the estates of the von dem Knesebeck
dissolved. On August 22, 1813, the day before the Battle of
Großbeeren, Ludwigsfelde was badly affected in connection with the
battles around the Wietstocker Schanzen. It is said that around a
thousand dead soldiers remained in the field between Wietstock and
Ludwigsfelde. Occasionally there are still worn memorial stones in
the forest area, which the authorities have unfortunately ignored.
The industrial revolution left Ludwigsfelde and the spinner
families without a trace for a long time. The first modest upswing
began with the construction of the Berlin-Anhalt Railway Company
between 1839 and 1841. The railway line ran through the district and
in 1843 the still small town was given a stop called Ludwigsfelde at
the instigation of the landowners who wanted to participate in the
technical progress. The halt developed into a transshipment center
for all surrounding manors. From Löwenbruch, Genshagen, Gröben,
Siethen and Kerzendorf “the heavy farm wagons rolled up. The carters
got in contact with the railroad workers and in this way found out
about what was going on in a world that until then had been outside
their imagination.
In 1861 there were nine households in the
Damsdorf colony. The population, without exception, was Protestant
and consisted of three overseers, a housekeeper, five servants,
three maids, a craftsman and a large number of day laborers. The
households had nine domestic pigs and fifteen domestic goats. "In
addition, six civil servants from the private railway company and
three people lived in Dahmsdorf who" partly lived on alms. " and had
eleven goats. With the exception of a house and a stable, all
Ludwigsfeld buildings belonged to the lords of Löwenbruch.
In
1886 the Ludwigsfelde train station was completed as a
representative brick building, which today serves as a museum and is
the second oldest preserved building in the city center and is a
listed building. The upswing due to the railway connection was
accompanied by an expansion of the road network, for the financing
of which a road building had been set up at the entrance to the town
to collect road tolls. In 1904 the place received a telegraph
office.
The colonies that were now united to form Ludwigsfelde received the
decisive impetus to become an industrial location in 1936 with the
construction of an aircraft engine plant. The population exploded
from around 100 residents in 1900 to 229 in 1933, 1,032 in 1937,
3,640 in 1939, 5,810 in 1950, 13,009 in 1960, 16,663 in 1970 to
22,900 in 1983. Ludwigsfeld's settlement and industrial history have
been closely intertwined since 1936.
In 1936/1937, the Reich
Aviation Ministry (RLM) decided to build an aircraft engine plant in
Genshagener Heide. The Kurmärkische Kleinsiedlungsgesellschaft built
inexpensive apartments in order to tie a trunk of workers to the
plant. This is how one of the largest housing estates in Germany was
built, the Daimler factory settlement, on both sides of today's
Ernst-Thälmann-Strasse. The northern end of this district is formed
by the wooden housing estate that was built in 1944 and for which
the city council passed a conservation statute in 1992. The need for
labor in the war phase was so high that more and more prisoners of
war and forced laborers were used in production; in the spring of
1944 there were 11,000 members from almost all occupied countries.
In addition, there were inmates of the Großbeeren labor education
camp and 1,200 inmates of the Danzig-Matzkau SS penal camp, who had
to live under inhumane conditions. Although it had already been
partially destroyed by Allied air raids, a satellite camp of the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp for 1,100 women from the
Ravensbrück concentration camp was set up on the factory premises in
September 1944. They too had to work under terrible conditions. Many
died of hunger and disease, and 43 workers were executed by the
Gestapo.
After the Second World War, the destroyed aircraft engine plant was dismantled. From 1952 onwards, with the establishment of the Ludwigsfelde industrial plant (IWL), later a truck plant with around 10,000 employees, there was renewed immigration, in particular by numerous resettlers from the eastern German regions east of the Oder-Neisse border. Several settlements in different architectural forms were built for the new residents. Particularly outstanding is the “socialist residential town” built around Heinrich-Heine-Platz (poet's quarter) in the form of the national building tradition in the 1950s.
According to the Stasi protocols published by the project on June
17, 1953, a demonstration took place in Ludwigsfelde during the
uprising of June 17, 1953, during which the strikers carried banners
with slogans such as free elections, more butter, HO price
reductions, and dissolution of the national armed forces. The 1,500
participating workers did not come from the industrial plant, but
were construction workers for the housing construction of the
Potsdam Building Union. According to the minutes, the strikers went
to the industrial plant and asked IFA workers to also stop working.
When the latter did not comply, the strikers allegedly tried to
destroy machines in the plant. After the Stasi had disbanded the
gatherings in the meantime, 200 people appeared in front of the
industrial plant in the evening to free a person detained there. The
Stasi arrested 15 so-called ringleaders. However, the MTS
Ludwigsfelde [...] remained occupied by the protest demonstrators.
At that time, according to their protocols, the Stasi had 35
employees in the industrial plant and another 35 on site. On the
morning of the following day, June 18, 1953, around 400 construction
workers gathered in front of the mayor's barrack in Ludwigsfelde and
demanded freedom for the strike leadership. The Stasi then sent
another 35 employees to the town.
A further expansion of the
industrial plants required new housing estates, so that the second
residential town and Ludwigsfelde West were built in the late 1950s
and 1960s, and the Ludwigsfelde-Nord housing estate, which was built
in several construction phases using prefabricated panels, was built
in the 1970s and 1980s. The Ludwigfeldes Kulturhaus was built in
1959 as a community facility with corresponding use, and in 1965 the
town was granted city rights.
In October 1976 Ludwigsfelde
became an army base. The National People's Army set up a location
for a news regiment in Neckarstrasse on the western outskirts of the
city. In 1981 the barracks wall was decorated by the Ludwigsfeld
artist Volkhard Böhme with a ten-part mural History of
Communication. The wall was preserved even after the site was closed
and was placed under monument protection in 2019.
After reunification, the 9,700 employees at the IFA plant lost their initial hopes of a joint venture with Daimler-Benz. The last IFA W50 truck left the assembly line on December 17, 1990. However, Daimler-Benz resumed its old tradition in Ludwigsfelde as early as 1991, so that the continuity of the Ludwigsfelde industrial location was maintained. The settlement of new companies and the formation of industrial and business parks in the 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century ensured constant growth in the city (see below: Industrial production), which was taken into account with new residential areas and representative buildings. On November 30, 1996, the city inaugurated a new town hall, which was previously housed in a barrack of the Nazi forced labor camp. In 1999 DaimlerChrysler built a residential complex on Ahrensdorfer Heide, followed by the Preußenpark residential area and in 2001 the pine settlement. In 2006, a new attraction opened in Ludwigsfelde with the Kristalltherme (see below).
Until 1952 Ludwigsfelde was part of the Teltow district in the Prussian province of Brandenburg, from 1947 it was part of the state of Brandenburg. From 1952 to 1993 Ludwigsfelde belonged to the Zossen district in the Potsdam district, from 1990 to the state of Brandenburg. With the administrative reform in 1993, the city became part of the newly formed Teltow-Fläming district.
The entire city of Ludwigsfelde is surrounded by the following
cities and communities: in the northwest by the Stahnsdorf district
of Sputendorf, in the north by Großbeeren, in the northeast by
Blankenfelde-Mahlow, in the east with a short stretch of Rangsdorf
Lake by Rangsdorf and then by the Zossen district of Glienick, in
the southeast of the Zossen district of Nunsdorf, in the south of
the Trebbin districts of Märkisch Wilmersdorf, Thyrow, Glau and
Blankensee, in the west of the Nuthetal districts of Tremsdorf,
Fahlhorst and Saarmund.
The core city is traversed in a
west-east direction by the Autobahn 10, the Berliner Ring, and
divided into Ludwigsfelde-Nord and -Süd. Ludwigsfelde has two train
stations connected to the Anhalter Bahn, which connects Berlin to
Halle an der Saale via Wittenberg. Another train stop connects
Ludwigsfelde with the Potsdam - Berlin Airport BER line. In a
north-south direction, the urban area runs through the federal
highway 101 (or B 101n), which has been expanded into the “Yellow
Motorway”, with several junctions throughout the city.
The entire city of
Ludwigsfelde is culturally part of the Teltow. From a geological
point of view, however, only the core city lies on the Teltow
Plateau, because the geological boundary of the Teltow is more
narrowly defined than the cultural one, as the two boundaries on the
adjacent map make clear. Then the core city is located on the
southwestern Teltow tongue, which is separated from the Trebbiner
Platte in the south at the Thyrower Pforte by the Ice Age
Saalow-Christinendorfer drainage path. The districts, on the other
hand, are mainly located in adjacent lowlands. To the west, the
Teltow merges into the Trebbin-Potsdam drainage line, the valley of
which the Nuthe and Nieplitz rivers flow through today. To the east,
the Teltow tongue descends to the Löwenbrucher valley sand area and
to the former Rangsdorf-Thyrower drainage channel, which today is
traversed by an extensive ditch system with the main ditch
Nuthekanal.
The flat, undulating ground moraine surface of
the Teltow, on average ten to twenty meters thick, was formed around
20,000 years ago in the Brandenburg stage of the Vistula Ice Age.
The height differences between the plateau and the glacial runoffs
are reflected in the different height levels of the Ludwigsfeld
urban area. While the core city at an altitude of 43 m above sea
level. is, Schiaß is at a level of 35 m above sea level. and
Ahrensdorf as the lowest district at 32 m above sea level. At Groß
Schulzendorf on the Glienicker Platte east of the Teltowzunge, the
city then again reaches 43 m above sea level.
The core city is surrounded by the
Ahrensdorfer Heide, the Siethener Heide am Landschaftsschutzgebiet
(LSG) Pechpfuhl, the Genshagener Heide, the Damsdorfer Heide and the
Ludwigsfelder Heide. Since 1936 the Genshagener Heide had to give
way to industrial buildings in large parts. Due to the dry, sandy
Teltow soils, extensive pine stands dominate the forests. Blown sand
deposits illustrate the labeling of the Electorate of Brandenburg as
the “sand can of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation” in
Ludwigsfelde, almost ideally.
At the edge of the inland
dunes, on the loamy ground of the Teltow, some damp depressions with
fractures and stagnant waters formed. This includes the landscape
protection area (LSG) Pechpfuhl, which borders directly on the
residential areas of the northwestern Ludwigsfelder core town. The
former glacial drainage channel drains over the Leopoldsgraben into
the Siethener See and further into the Gröbener See. Originally it
flowed west of the Nuthe against the current direction of flow of
the Nieplitz on over the Schiaßer See and the Grössinsee to the
Blankensee. The elongated southern part of the Pechpfuhl is
characterized by four open bodies of water and in the northern part,
where it takes on the character of an upland moor, by cottongrass
moorland and alder forest. Among the flora and fauna, the
carnivorous sundew (Drosera), which is specially protected in
Germany, and the strictly protected wren (Troglodytes troglodytes),
bird of the year 2004, are noteworthy.
The channel of the Trebbin-Potsdam drainage line west of the
Teltow now flows through the Nuthe and the Nieplitz. In the
Nuthe-Nieplitz lowland lie the districts of Schiaß, Mietgendorf,
Jütchendorf, Siethen, Gröben and Ahrensdorf, all of which are part
of the Nuthe-Nieplitz Nature Park. The lowland is characterized by
rupture areas and lake-like extensions in the hypertrophic
river-lake system in the lower reaches of the Nieplitz, which in the
Ludwigsfeld area consists of the Grössinsee and the Schiaßer See. At
Mietgendorf, the southwestern border of Ludwigsfeld runs through the
Glauer Berge, which in the middle of the lowland landscape form an
isolated compression moraine made of pre-poured sands from the
Vistula Ice Age. The highest elevation of the Glauer Berge with 93 m
also forms the highest elevation in Ludwigsfeld.
District
articles, especially Gröben and Jütchendorf
Districts of the
Nuthekanal lowlands, Glienicker Platte
The eastern districts of
Kerzendorf, Löwenbruch, Genshagen and Wietstock are located in the
former Rangsdorf-Thyrower drainage channel on the edge of the
Löwenbruch valley sand area, which today is traversed by a rift
system with the main ditch Nuthekanal. The boundaries of these
villages partly belong to the extensive landscape protection area
Notte-Niederung. A part of Wietstock is already up on the Glienicker
Platte to the east and the easternmost district of Groß Schulzendorf
lies entirely on this plateau. With a small tip, Ludwigsfelde
extends even further east in this area to Lake Rangsdorf.
Ludwigsfelde lies in a temperate climate zone in the transition area from the Atlantic climate of Northern / Western Europe to the continental climate of Eastern Europe. The temperature curve corresponds roughly to the national German average. The seasonal temperature fluctuations are less than in the usual continental climate, but higher than in the more balanced maritime climate of the coastal regions. The annual mean temperature is 9.0 ° C. The annual sunshine duration is 1618 hours on average. The mean annual rainfall of 551.2 mm is less than the national average of around 800 mm. Most of the precipitation falls in the summer months of June to August with a peak of 69 mm in June. October has the lowest rainfall at 33 mm. Weather extremes such as storms, heavy hail or above-average snowfall are rare.
Until the Lehnin monastery was secularized in 1542, the Cistercians
had a major influence on cultural and religious life in the villages
that are now part of Ludwigsfelde and were involved in the construction
of several village churches. In 1539, the Elector of Brandenburg Joachim
II introduced the Reformation. After that, Brandenburg was a
predominantly Protestant region for centuries. The Lutheran confession
was dominant alongside the Reformed Church. In 1817, the two Protestant
denominations within Prussia were united to form the United Church. In
1918 the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union was founded, which
became the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg in 1947. In 2004 the
church merged with the Evangelical Church of Silesian Upper Lusatia to
form the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper
Lusatia. Ludwigsfelde is divided into the three parishes of Ahrensdorf,
Ludwigsfelde and Löwenbruch, which belong to the church district of
Zossen in the Sprengel Görlitz.
Until 1955 there were no church
buildings in the two spinner colonies Damsdorf and Ludwigsfelde or in
the later core town. The faithful went to the services in the
neighboring churches in Löwenbruch, Genshagen or Siethen. The Church of
St. Michael, inaugurated on May 8, 1955, is intended to embody the
Bethlehem stable in its architectural style and was given a matching,
simple wooden interior. The community in the core city has around 2,000
members (as of 2007). Furthermore, within the evangelical church, there
are organizationally independent groups such as the regional church
community, which operates the community center Schalom, and the free
church of the Seventh-day Adventists with a community center. The
Catholic Church has a rectory with the St. Pius X Church and the New
Apostolic Church has a parish room.
1990-2008: Heinrich Scholl (SPD), resignation due to reaching
retirement age
2008–2015: Frank Gerhard (SPD), died on March 25, 2015
at the age of 48
since 2015: Andreas Igel (SPD)
Hedgehog was
elected to an eight-year term in the September 20, 2015 mayoral election
with 57.6% of valid votes (40.6% turnout).
Blazon: “Cleft of black and silver; in it a rooted pine tree of mixed
colors, accompanied on the right by a gold cog and on the left by a red
fowl-fang.”
Coat of arms: The crown of the pine covers the cogwheel
and the fowl catch, their spread roots form the coat of arms. The
central position of the pine stands for the extensive forests (heaths)
around the central city, which are mainly characterized by extensive
pine stands on the dry Teltow soils. The cog wheel symbolizes the
industrial development and importance of the core city and was adopted
as the only part of the former coat of arms. The bird's leg is an eagle
fang and borrowed from the heraldic animal of the state of Brandenburg,
the red Märkisches eagle. It shows that the city belongs to the country
and is reminiscent of the Ascanian settlement of the villages, since the
Märkische eagle goes back to the Ascanian eagle.
The coat of arms was
approved on March 25, 1993.
Blazon: “Parted in red and gold; above a stylized golden high-rise
building, below at the dividing line a stylized black bridge, both parts
of the shield covered with a black gear wheel, which is behind the
high-rise building at the top and in front of the bridge below, the
parts of the gear wheel in front of the bridge are golden.
Rationale
for Coat of Arms: In the representation of the coat of arms used by the
city, the shield is shaped after the outline of an automobile cylinder
block. This coat of arms, which was newly created as part of a public
competition after city rights were granted in 1965, is based on the
basic colors of the state coat of arms of the GDR. The high-rise
building, as a local dominant, points to the rapidly growing number of
inhabitants, the cog wheel and the shape of the sign point to truck
production. The Autobahn underpass symbolizes the Berliner Ring, which
crosses the city. In addition, the stylized high-rise is heraldic to the
right of a fictitious gap and in the heraldic theory of colors the
combination of black and red next to each other (color next to color) is
actually impossible. In a correct blazon, the passage of the confused
colors would also appear, because a black gear wheel over a black bridge
cannot otherwise be represented.
The flag is striped white - black (1:1) and has the city coat of arms in the middle.
In 1985, Ludwigsfelde entered into a town twinning with the French
municipality of Romainville. Since 1998 there has been a town twinning
with the small Polish town of Zdzieszowice in the Opole Voivodeship. The
partnership consists of exchange and mutual visits on a political,
cultural and sporting level. In 2001, for example, the "Ludwigsfeld
Men's Ballet" of the Ludwigsfeld Carnival Association performed in the
city on the Oder.
Other friendly connections exist with
Paderborn, Rheinfelden and Gaggenau, which have not yet resulted in
official partnerships.
The connection to the university town of
Paderborn, where there is a Ludwigsfelder Ring, has existed since German
reunification. The origin of the connection was the use of the Paderborn
data center by the city of Ludwigsfelde.
Visits to Rheinfelden are
cultural, especially musical. The Ludwigsfelde wind orchestra has made
several guest appearances in the middle center on the Swiss border.
The connection to Gaggenau, a central center in the Middle Upper Rhine
region, goes back to the Mercedes-Benz plant there, which cooperates
closely with the Mercedes plant in Ludwigsfeld.
In 1936, Daimler-Benz Motoren GmbH Genshagen/Ludwigsfelde was
founded. Construction of the aircraft engine factory began on an area of
375 hectares. As a result, the number of inhabitants grew along with the
need for workers. At the time of the GDR, the scooters "Pitty", "Troll",
"Wiesel" and "Berlin" were built in the VEB Automobilwerke Ludwigsfelde,
later the W50 truck and from 1986 the L60. In 1990, production had to be
stopped due to falling demand due to the conversion to the D-Mark
currency and the takeover by the trustee. From the mid-1990s, the focus
in Ludwigsfelde was on the production of small vans such as the Vaneo
and the Vario, but production was discontinued in summer 2005 and
September 2013 respectively. On June 23, 2006 the production of the new
Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and the VW Crafter in all open versions started
with great success. MTU Maintenance Berlin Brandenburg GmbH also settled
in the up-and-coming medium-sized center and thus continued the history
of aviation in Ludwigsfelde. The TP400-D6 turboprop engine for the
Airbus A400M undergoes final series acceptance tests in Ludwigsfelde and
is delivered. ThyssenKrupp, Coca-Cola and various logistics companies
have also settled here. Since June 2006, Volkswagen AG (OTLG) has been
operating a logistics center for original parts, from which 600 VW
dealers in the new federal states are supplied twice a day. The Siemens
group has also set up a logistics site in the city and is planning to
put a new test center for gas turbines into operation in 2014. This was
eventually built in the USA.
More than 70 companies are
concentrated on an area of 256 hectares in the Ludwigsfelde Industrial
Park. There are also three business parks with an area of 618 hectares.
A total of around 900 companies specializing in the areas of vehicle
construction, traffic technology, aerospace technology as well as
forwarding and logistics offer around 10,000 jobs. As a regional growth
core in the economic development system of the state of Brandenburg, the
city is an important industrial location and has made a significant
contribution to the district of Teltow-Fläming being the most successful
business location in the new federal states twice in a row, according to
studies by the magazine "Focus Money" in 2006 and 2007 .
Ludwigsfelde station is on the Berlin–Halle/Leipzig line (Anhalter
Bahn). It is served by the regional express lines RE 3
Stralsund/Schwedt-Berlin-Lutherstadt Wittenberg, RE 4
Rathenow-Berlin-Falkenberg (Elster) and the regional train line RB 32
Ludwigsfelde-Flughafen BER. Only trains on the RE 3 and RB 32 lines stop
at the Birkengrund stop (also located on the Anhalter Bahn).
Located on Berlin's outer ring, Genshagener Heide station was closed in
December 2012 and replaced by the new Ludwigsfelde-Struveshof stop two
kilometers to the west, which is served by the RB 22 Königs
Wusterhausen-Flughafen BER-Potsdam-Potsdam Griebnitzsee regional train
line.
Local public transport is provided, among other things, by
the PlusBus of the Berlin-Brandenburg transport association. The
following connections run from Ludwigsfelde, operated by the
Teltow-Fläming transport company:
Line 714: Ludwigsfelde ↔ Groß
Schulzendorf ↔ Glienick ↔ Dabendorf ↔ Zossen
Line 715: Ludwigsfelde ↔
Ahrensdorf ↔ Nudow ↔ Potsdam
Ludwigsfelde is on the
Federal
highway 101 between Berlin and Luckenwalde
State road 79 between
Potsdam and Zossen
State road 793 to Schönhagen
State road 795
between the district of Ahrensdorf and Thyrow.
The A 10 (southern
Berliner Ring) runs through the city center with the 330 m long
Ludwigsfelder Bridge. The bridge was rebuilt as part of the six-lane
motorway expansion and has replaced the narrow eye of the bottleneck
from 1936 on Potsdamer Straße since 2001. East and west of the city are
the junctions Ludwigsfelde-Ost, Ludwigsfelde-West and Genshagen. In the
Ludwigsfelde-Ost junction, built in the form of a motorway junction, the
A 10 and the “Yellow Motorway” federal road 101 intersect.
Located in the city
five elementary schools: Gebrüder Grimm
Elementary School, Theodor Fontane Elementary School, Kleeblatt
Elementary School, 1st New Elementary School, 2nd New Elementary School
a comprehensive school: comprehensive school of the city of Ludwigsfelde
the general special school in Ludwigsfelde
the special school for the
mentally handicapped Am Wald Groß Schulzendorf
the
Marie-Curie-Gymnasium Ludwigsfelde
the upper school center of the
district of Teltow-Fläming with the departments of metal, construction
and electrical engineering as well as interior design and color
technology
company training at Mercedes-Benz Ludwigsfelde GmbH
the
Center for Education and Training Ludwigsfelde GmbH (ZAL)
the State
Institute for Schools and Media Berlin-Brandenburg (LISUM)
the music
and art school of the city of Ludwigsfelde (in the culture house)
In 1998 the German Mathematical Olympiad took place in Ludwigsfelde.
In cooperation with the Märkische Heimat housing association, the city
is involved in the local alliance for families and was awarded the title
of family-friendly city in the state of Brandenburg in 2006. There are
14 day care facilities available for the care of children. There are
also various playgrounds and football pitches and a leisure club and a
youth club for young people. For seniors, the city offers several
meeting places and the Academy 2. Half of Life e. v.
The approximately 100 clubs in Ludwigsfeld cover a wide range of
interests, from rifle clubs to wind bands, development clubs, allotment
clubs, self-help groups, sports clubs and hiking clubs.
The
Ludwigsfelde volunteer fire brigade has existed since 1932 and, in
addition to fire engine I in the town centre, has eight local fire
fighting groups in the villages and a youth fire brigade. In 1997 a new
fire station was inaugurated. In 1998 the fire service had 175 active
members. The equipment includes, among other things, a fire-fighting
vehicle LF 16/12, a tank fire-fighting vehicle TLF 4000, a rescue
vehicle (RW) 1, an equipment vehicle for hazardous goods, a command
vehicle (ELW) 1 and a modern turntable ladder from the year 2000.
The association "Friends of Industrial History Ludwigsfelde e.V."
(FIL) researches and documents the development of the industrial
companies that have largely shaped this city. Representative products
from motor scooters to trucks are restored in the club workshop and
presented at events and in the town museum.
In the years 1944/45, only two practicing doctors were available to provide medical care to the approximately 5,000 inhabitants of Ludwigsfeld and the surrounding villages. After the end of the Second World War, the city set up an emergency hospital in three barracks, initially with a general practitioner and later also with a dentist. After the construction of the industrial plant (IWL) and the associated significant increase in the population in 1952, this equipment was finally insufficient, so that a polyclinic was built and inaugurated in 1954. After expansion, the clinic had a capacity of 71 beds and a total of 80 employees in the medical and technical areas at the end of 1954. In 1956, a training center for nurses, nannies, dental assistants and dental technicians was added. In 1962 the first courses for nurses took place. Capacity was increased in 1957 to 84, 1960 to 110, 1964 to 121 and 1984 to 197 beds. In 1977 the district hospital (district polyclinic) Prof. Dr. E. Marcusson with the affiliation of the previously independent medical facilities in Zossen and Rangsdorf. In 1986 the hospital in Mahlow was added.
On March 1, 1993, the Evangelical Deaconess House in Berlin-Teltow
took over the district hospital as the new hospital operator. With the
construction of another house with 105 beds and a department for
functional diagnostics and endoscopy in 2002, the houses in Teltow and
Zossen were merged in Ludwigsfelde. In addition to an emergency room,
the hospital has the following departments: anaesthesia, surgery,
obstetrics, gynaecology, internal medicine, paediatrics, the Brandenburg
Breast Center and physiotherapy. Since 1999, the facility has been
involved in the training of doctors as an academic teaching hospital of
the Charité.
There are also two medical centers equipped with an
institute outpatient clinic and a day clinic for psychiatry,
psychotherapy and psychosomatics from the Asklepios specialist clinic in
Teupitz. There is also a center for occupational medicine and
occupational safety. The Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund runs a retirement and
nursing home as well as a home for dementia sufferers. In addition to
the institutional care facilities, there are around fifty medical
practices in almost all disciplines, three veterinary practices and ten
physiotherapy practices in Ludwigsfelde.
Ludwigsfelde is one of the sister cities of the football club Hertha
BSC. Ludwigsfelder FC played in the Oberliga Nord-Ost up until the
2010/2011 season and was the 2003 cup winner in the Brandenburg state
football association. In the 2017/18 season he competes in the
Brandenburg League.
The Ludwigsfeld handball club plays in the
handball Oberliga Ostsee-Spree and was the cup winner of the Brandenburg
Handball Association in 2003, 2004, 2009 and 2011. There are German
champions in cycle ball and model gliding. In motor boating, the MC IFA
Ludwigsfelde - the IFA-Werke produced engines for racing boats, among
other things - produced several German champions (GDR) and with Peter
Rosenow a world champion.
One of the largest sports clubs in the
city is the Ludwigsfelder Leichtathleten e. V. with the athletics,
skating and Nordic walking sections. There are also two basketball
clubs, the Panthers and the basketball club Ludwigsfelde (BVL). In 2001,
Ludwigsfelde was awarded the title of "Sportiest City" in the state of
Brandenburg by the Ministry for Youth, Education and Sport. A total of
around 4100 athletes are currently active in the Ludwigsfeld sports
clubs, 1100 of them alone in the children's and youth sector.
In
addition, Ludwigsfelde is one of the few cities where there is a
wrestling sports club. The World Wrestling Fan Club Ludwigsfelde e. V.
has been promoting American wrestling in a sporting variant developed in
Germany since 1999. The association organizes the Wrestling Sports
Generation (WSG) league in Ludwigsfelde, which gives the city's sporting
image another interesting facet.
Christian Sprenger, who played
in the German national team from 2002 to 2012, lived in Ludwigsfelde and
trained e.g. with René Rose at HSG Ahrensdorf/ Schenkenhorst.
In April 2006, the Central Franconian Kristall Baeder AG opened the Kristall swimming and health center in Ludwigsfelde, which consists of a large sauna thermal bath and a sports pool. The Kristalltherme offers two indoor thermal brine pools and a connected outdoor pool with flow channel. In addition, a freshwater pool, a caustic soda pool and the indoor sports pool in the separate sports area, which was co-financed by the city of Ludwigsfelde and can be used by the city's schools and clubs. 13 saunas and two steam baths are available indoors and outdoors. The Kristalltherme is the largest nudist spa in Europe and has the z. Currently the largest single sauna in Europe with 200 seats.
Sons and daughters of the town
Werner Musiol (1930–1982),
motorcycle racer
Peter Rosenow (* 1937), racing boat world champion
Hilmar Baumann (1939–2018), actor
Jutta Abromeit (born 1959), rower
Kathrin Waligura (born 1962), actress
Bianca Urbanke-Rösicke (born
1967), handball player
Antje Töpfer (born 1968), political official
(Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Yvonne Bönisch (born 1980), Olympic judo
champion
Tobias Schick (* 1980), politician (SPD) and sports official
Christian Sprenger (born 1983), handball player
Felix Herholc (born
1987), handball goalkeeper
Gina Chmielinski (born 2000), soccer
player
Arne Maier (born 1999), soccer player
Vanessa Laws (born
2004), paracycline
Personalities associated with Ludwigsfelde
Barbara Rütting (1927-2020), actress and politician, grew up in the
district of Wietstock
Wera Küchenmeister (1929-2013), writer, lived
in the district of Siethen
Claus Küchenmeister (1930-2014), writer,
lived in the district of Siethen
Klaus Driefert (* 1938), motorboat
racer in the MC IFA Ludwigsfelde
Horst Krause (born 1941), actor,
grew up in Ludwigsfelde
Henry Maske (born 1964), boxer, trained at
BSG Motor Ludwigsfelde in the 1970s
Falko Hennig (* 1969), writer,
grew up in Ludwigsfelde
Antje Rávic Strubel (* 1974), writer, grew up
in Ludwigsfelde
Robert Bartko (* 1975), cyclist, lives in the
district of Jütchendorf
On his walks through the Mark Brandenburg (volume 4, Spreeland,
published 1882), Theodor Fontane held talks in the manor house in
Löwenbruch and visited Siethen and Gröben:
“From ancient times,
one of the most important parades from Wittenberg to Mark was the Nuthe
valley, and from ancient times there were also fixed points to defend or
close this parade. Of particular importance among these fixed points was
Beuthen Castle, situated in the middle reaches of the river, the same
Beuthen Castle which the Quitzow supporters held against the Burgrave of
Nuremberg and on whose submission the victory of the Hohenzoller cause
was tied.
From this castle, which was often mentioned at the
time, we take our exit today, following the course of the river, and
after a half-hour walk we reach a moderate hilltop from which we can see
two lake areas and two villages: Gröben and Siethen. A Brandenburg
idyll. But also a piece of Brandenburg history.”
- Theodor Fontane
Fontane visited Gröben several times (1860 and 1881) to see the
Gröben church register, the oldest surviving church register in Mark
Brandenburg. The book contains - with small interruptions - records from
the years 1575 to 1786 and meant for Fontane a "perfect microcosm" of
village life. In the Wanderings, the writer reproduces this microcosm in
detail.
The novel An Ad in the Newspaper by the writer Günter Görlich from
1978 is set in Ludwigsfelde and gives an impression of everyday school
life in the GDR in the 1960s and 1970s. The author completed a
pedagogical degree in 1951 and then worked as an educator in the
Struveshof youth work center and from 1953 to 1958 in a teaching combine
in Ludwigsfelde. The novel was filmed in 1980 under the same name by
DEFA for television. Director was Jurij Kramer, actors included Petra
Barthel, Hans Teuscher, Kurt Böwe, Christine Schorn, Manfred Richter and
Alexander Lang.
The novel Tupolew 134 from 2004 by Antje Rávic
Strubel, who grew up in Ludwigsfelde, also has the city as the setting
in large passages. The author tells the kidnapping of a Tupolev 134 to
Tempelhof by GDR citizens in 1978 on three time levels. The last level
describes the memory work 25 years after the flight and the middle level
describes the court hearing at the West Berlin airport. In the
prehistory, the author has the kidnappers work in the IFA combine
Ludwigsfelde, which she describes, among other things, as follows:
“The IFA automobile plant is a complex of routes, access roads,
gatehouses and a huge final assembly hall. There is a story about a
mechanic who had experienced three times in this plant. First he worked
in aircraft engine production, later he made engines for racing boats
and scooters with innocent names like Pitty or Weasel, and finally
four-wheel drive trucks. But when asked about it, he couldn't tell. Not
a single word."
– Antje Rávic Strubel: Tupolev 134
For
example, Strubel writes about sand and modern Ludwigsfelde:
“Potsdamer Strasse is glazed up to the train station. The City Council
has become a glass house. You can see everything, you can now see
through everything. There is no one who can give you any information.
You don't miss anyone. All the sand here was made into glass. The
playgrounds have been excavated, the test track cleared, every mound of
sand removed in the allotments and around the pool, even the pine roots
are now exposed. Blank, high-quality, smooth discs were placed on top.
Because of all the glass, you sometimes don't know whether you're still
standing in front of a house or whether you've already gone inside.
Whether you don't look out of a window, but maybe look inside again and
so it's not possible to get out of Ludwigsfelde."
– Antje Rávic
Strubel: Tupolev 134
Ludwigsfelde plays an important role in two novels by the author
Falko Hennig, who was born in 1969. His first novel Alles nur stolen
(Augsburg 1999) describes childhood and adolescence in the city. In the
novel, Falko Hennig is characterized as a petty criminal whose father
lost his job as a teacher in the GDR for political reasons and went on
to work in the car factory.
The city is even more central for
Hennig's second novel Trabanten (Munich 2002). The protagonist is
obsessed with cars and his story illustrates the history of motor
vehicle and rocket construction in Ludwigsfelde.
"A new decision
made Ludwigsfelde the place of manufacture, a huge new workshop was
built, blocks of flats, kindergartens, department stores, with the first
truck off the assembly line, Ludwigsfelde was allowed to call itself a
'city'. Even a car-manufacturing city, it got a coat of arms in the form
of an engine cylinder bulging at the bottom.”
– Falko Hennig:
Trabants
Even if history, fiction and reality merge in the novel,
Trabanten describes Ludwigsfelde as a place very precisely:
“There
was forest all around, actually there was even forest in Ludwigsfelde,
behind the wooden houses, between the blocks of flats, everywhere pine
trees stretched upwards, long and thin or gnarled when they stood alone.
Ludwigsfelde was divided by the Autobahn, but the two halves of the city
were connected by a road tunnel and a pedestrian tunnel.”
– Falko
Hennig: Trabants