Today, the former Maffei-Schwartzkopff Production Sites in Berlin and Wildau not only recalls the impact of the Industrial Revolution, but also the growing presence in Berlin of the armaments industry in the late- nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. ₁ The Works originally housed the Berliner Maschinenbau-Aktien-Gesellschaft vorm. L. Schwartzkopff (B.M.A.G), which built locomotives ₂ as well as armaments ₃ there. Unlike a lot of other companies, B.M.A.G. entered the arms business long before the National Socialist war economy put it under pressure: as early as 1879, it became the first German company to successfully develop torpedoes. ₄ However, the Nazis’ seizure of power in 1933 and subsequent rearmament did lead B.M.A.G. to expand its production to a wide range of armaments, including mine launchers, aircraft parts, and gun barrels. ₅ During Second World War, production was kept up by around 6000 forced laborers, who lived and worked on site in Wildau. ₆
 
Address: Scheringstraße 28, 13355 Berlin (formerly: Ackerstraße 96)
Photo on top: Thomas Kees – photographed by himself, CC BY-SA 3.0