Wolfsburg
is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located on the River Aller northeast of Braunschweig (Brunswick
), and is mainly notable as the headquarters of Volkswagen AG. Wolfsburg is bordered by the districts of Gifhorn and Helmstedt.
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History
Wolfsburg was founded in 1938 as
Stadt des KdF-Wagens
(
English:
City of the Kraft durch Freude
), a planned town around the village of Hesslingen in the
District of Gifhorn in order to house the workers of the
Volkswagen factories. During
World War II, there were also jeeps, airplanes and other military equipment built, mainly by
forced workers and
POWs at these factories.
In 1945, the city was renamed Wolfsburg after the castle of the same name 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 2003, Wolfsburg was renamed "Golfsburg" for one week to celebrate the
5th generation of the
Volkswagen Golf.
Main sights
Wolfsburg lacks historical buildings, and the sights include new attractions like the
Autostadt (a huge open air museum dedicated to
automobiles, owned and operated by
Volkswagen), a
planetarium, the
Phaeno Science Center, the largest hands-on science museum in Germany, and an excellent private art museum (
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg) specialised in modern and contemporary art.
Until the fall of the Iron Curtain and the dismantling of the
Berlin Wall, Wolfsburg was simply a place along the road to
Berlin just inside
West Germany.
With the opening in 2000 of Autostadt and that of Phaeno, as well as restaurants and a Ritz Carlton Hotel, tourism increased.
Sport
The most famous professional sports club in the city is
VfL Wolfsburg, a
football club that was established in 1945. They are the current
German champions, having won the 2009
Fußball-Bundesliga. Hockey team
EHC Wolfsburg Grizzly Adams is also based in the city.
Twin towns
- Luton, United Kingdom, since 1950
- Marignane, France, since 1963
- Province of Pesaro e Urbino, Italy, since 1975
- Halberstadt, Germany, since 1989
- Changchun, People's Republic of China
- Togliatti, Russia, since 1991
- Bielsko-Biala, Poland, since 1998
- Taubaté, Brazil
- Puebla, Mexico
Associated cities:
- Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1985
- Toyohashi, Japan since 2002
See also
- Metropolitan region Hannover-Braunschweig-Göttingen-Wolfsburg