A podcast about NEULAND's final construction activities during the Second World War.
NEULAND was founded in 1938 in the city of the KdF car and operated under the influence of the Nazi regime in its early years. Today, it is a modern, municipal housing company. That is precisely why NEULAND is confronting its own history – openly and critically. Historian Dr Maik Ullmann, a research assistant at the Institute for Contemporary History and City Presentation, is currently researching the company's history. The results will be published in early 2026 in an anthology by Wallstein Verlag in Göttingen. A podcast already provides a variety of insights in advance. The fourth episode focuses on the last years of the war.
The aesthetic guidelines of urban planning were disregarded. There was only one motto here: build.
Building under wartime conditions: makeshift settlements and new priorities
With the construction of the Volkswagen factory, an exemplary workers' town was to be created from 1938 onwards: a town surrounded by greenery, separated by the Mittelland Canal into residential and working areas, with parade streets and assembly points. From 1942 onwards, however, civilian housing construction came to a virtual standstill due to material shortages and a lack of labour. In the final years of the war, NEULAND was involved in the construction of standardised temporary housing, among other things. These were built using rapid construction methods, for example in the Laux settlement on what was then Reichsstraße 188. The purpose of such settlements was to create urgently needed living space after residential areas had been destroyed by Allied bombing.
The podcast "NEULAND – History and Responsibility" is available on all popular portals.