Hanomag

In Hannover's hip and edgy neighborhood of Linden, among the dive bars and the Spanish restaurants and the apartment buildings where more people speak Turkish than German, is the old Hanomag factory. It's an enormous building, and a big part of the city's history. Hanomag began building steam locomotives in Linden in the mid-1800s. The company later added trucks, tractors, and other farm machinery to their production lines, and in the 1920's, started to build cars.



The automobile soon became Hanomag's most important item, and by 1931 the company had built its last locomotive. As Germany's second largest car manufacturer (behind Opel), Hanomag made some pretty cute little cars in the early 30s:


Then World War II came, and Hanomag switched to producing not-so-cute vehicles for the German military. I don't think the Nazis were into cuteness.
 They made engines, an army-style tractor, and troop carriers. They also made ammunition and anti-aircraft guns, right there in Linden, a little working class suburb of Hannover. As you might imagine, this made Hanomag a target for Allied bombs. If you add in Continental making tires, a metal works factory nearby, and the city being a pretty important railway junction for the region, Hannover looks like a big red bull's eye. (Some of this war-time production was done by forced labor... once I learn about it I will make sure to tell you more). While 90% of town was destroyed by 1945, some key buildings remain. The Hanomag factory is one of them.

Maybe the early Hanomag workers looked like this

After the war, Hanomag went back to making tractors. Today, Hanomag is part of Komatsu, the world's second largest manufacturer of construction equipment. Komatsu still uses much of the original factory building, but it also houses a big bike shop and OBI, a hardware megastore that would remind you Americans of Home Depot. Home Depot is not hip or edgy, but it's handy when you need to paint your living room. It's also way cooler when housed in an early 1900s factory building with a statue of an idealized worker guy holding a sledgehammer outside.