Mercedes Benz Ludwigsfelde Vehicle assembly plant

 car assembly factory  Add category

 Upload a photo

In 1936 Daimler-Benz Motoren GmbH was founded with a new factory at Genshagen / Ludwigsfelde. The factory made Daimler-Benz DB 600 series aircraft engines until 1945, when the USAAF bombed the plant and then what plant had survived the bombing was removed and taken to the Soviet Union as war reparations. In 1952 the factory was refounded as the VEB Industriewerke Ludwigsfelde, which made various products including heavy machinery and Multicar small trade vehicles. For a brief period the plant made Pirna jet engines for the ill-fated Dresden 152 airliner. For more than a decade, 1954–65, it made IWL motor scooters, including the SR 59 Berlin (1956–59).

In 1965 the plant was enlarged and converted to build IFA trucks. When completed, the new production complex was the largest in the DDR. From 1965 the plant built IFA W50 five-tonne trucks, and from 1988 it made the larger L60 six-tonne trucks as well. Production collapsed after the DDR adopted the Deutsche Mark in July 1990. Daimler-Benz took a minority share in the plant in 1991 and complete ownership in 1994. In the 1990s the factory made T2 and Vario vans, and then at the end of the decade DaimlerChrysler modernised the plant to produce the Mercedes-Benz Vaneo. Since 2006 the plant has made Mercedes Sprinter vans and major components for Volkswagen Crafter vans.