Wolfsburg

Wolfsburg is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located on the River Aller northeast of Braunschweig (Brunswick). Wolfsburg is bordered by the districts of Gifhorn and Helmstedt.

The city is very young, since it was planned by the Nazis in order to build a town for the workers of the Volkswagen factories. It was founded in 1938 as Stadt des KdF-Wagens ("City of the KdF Car") around the village of Hesslingen in the District of Gifhorn. Kraft durch Freude (abbreviated KdF and meaning "strength through joy") was the German state-controlled leisure organization; one of its projects was the KdF-Wagen, which would later be known as the VW Beetle. During World War II there were also jeeps, airplanes and other military equipment built, mainly by forced workers and POWs at these factories.

After World War II, in 1945, the city got its present name after the Wolfsburg castle located in the city, which was founded about 1300 on the bank of the Aller river. Today there is another castle at the place, which was built after 1600. In 1951, Wolfsburg was separated from the District of Gifhorn, and became an urban district. In November of 2003, Wolfsburg was renamed Golfsburg for one week to celebrate the 5th generation of the Volkswagen Golf.

Wolfsburg lacks historical buildings, and the sights include new attractions like the Autostadt (a huge open air museum about automobiles, owned and operated by Volkswagen), a planetarium, the Phaeno Science Center, and an art museum.

In the past, Wolfsburg has been considered by many to be one of the least remarkable towns in Germany, lacking in culture and visitor attractions, with the only notable reason to visit being the VW factory. Until the fall of the Iron Curtain and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, Wolfsburg was simply a place along the road to Berlin on a narrow corridor through East Germany. The town, unsurprisingly, has not enjoyed an active tourist industry, and many guide books have even advised avoiding it when travelling in Germany.

Now, however, this is changing. With the opening in 2000 of Autostadt, VW's 750 million dollar 'auto delivery center' containing individual museums for all the car brands owned by VW, as well as restaurants and a Ritz Carlton Hotel, more people had a reason to come to Wolfsburg. And now, with the opening of Phaeno, Wolfsburg is the home to the largest hands-on science museum in Germany. This 80 million Euro project, conceived and led by Dr. Wolfgang Guthardt and funded primarily by the City of Wolfsburg, features a building designed by the conceptual architect Zaha Hadid Ltd, of London and exhibitions designed by Joe Ansel of Ansel Associates, Inc. of Point Richmond, California. The building, located adjacent to the main train station, directly across the middle land canal from Autostadt and at the opposite end of the Porschestrasse from the art museum, is a dramatic example of leading edge architecture and construction techniques. Inside visitors will find more than 250 interactive exhibits and commissioned artworks in an exhibition composed of the best hands-on science exhibits to be found worldwide. This building and its exhibitions are now considered by many to be the benchmark for science museums in Germany. Between its opening on the 24th of November 2005 and the 1st of March 2006 more than 100,000 visitors have come to see the building and its exhibitions. The art museum, though now a bit isolated at the other end of the Porschestrasse, features excellent touring shows of both well known and lesser known modern artists.

Some neighbouring towns were incorporated into Wolfsburg in 1972, e.g. the city of Fallersleben, which is now a quarter of Wolfsburg. Fallersleben was the home of August Heinrich Hoffmann (commonly known as Hoffmann von Fallersleben), who wrote the lyrics of the German national anthem (Das Lied der Deutschen).