Rebuilding

The war caused terrible damage to all of Siemens as a company, but Berlin was especially hard hit. Forty percent of fabrication space was destroyed; early in May 1945, shortly after war action in the city ceased, the Red Army confiscated the company’s bank accounts. As soon as they had occupied Siemensstadt, Soviet troops began dismantling machinery throughout and destroying or removing vast amounts of drawings, design documents, and accounting records. Over the following years, Siemens lost about 98 percent of its capacity all over the Soviet Occupation Zone to expropriation by dismantling.

Amid this plight, the workforce was the company’s greatest support. The few who still remained at the plants after the Russians occupied Siemensstadt tried to keep the dismantling to a somewhat orderly course. On September 8, 1945, Siemens began emergency production at its works. It made items needed for everyday use: bicycle tires, coal shovels, pots, frying pans, and more. Over the next two years, production of electrical equipment gradually resumed at Siemensstadt, and the Siemens team returned to their jobs. By December 1945, 14,000 of them were already working again. Training for apprentices returned at the same time. For some families whose fathers had been killed or taken prisoner, a trainee’s wages were the only source of income.

Rebuilding at the Siemens plants in Berlin was largely complete by 1951, and production was again running within organized channels. Scarce raw materials, a limited infrastructure and labor shortages made the path a bumpy one, but the Siemens team, united in their strength, made headway. Besides repairing the factories, initial orders already began coming in during the first postwar years – some of the most important of these were for installations and repairs for the railways and the post office, and restoring the telecommunications network and communications infrastructure in Berlin.

By the mid-1950s, Siemens had largely recovered from its difficult postwar years. But the Berlin site had undergone drastic changes. In light of the imminent partitioning of Germany, in 1949 management had felt compelled to formally relocate headquarters, at least provisionally, from Berlin to Munich and Erlangen. The Berlin Blockade and the impending establishment of two Germanys lent the final push for the decision. Yet Siemensstadt would remain an important part of the company and contributed to its continuing upswing in operations.