Sindelfingen Explained

Gemeindeschlüssel:08 1 15 045
Type:Town
Image Coa:Sindelfingen Wappen.svg
Coordinates:48.7133°N 9.0028°W
Image Plan:Sindelfingen in BB.svg
State:Baden-Württemberg
Region:Stuttgart
District:Böblingen
Elevation:449
Area:50.85
Postal Code:71043–71069
Area Code:07031
Licence:BB
Website:www.sindelfingen.de
Mayor:Bernd Vöhringer[1]
Leader Term:2017 - 25
Bürgermeistertitel:Lord Mayor
Party:CDU

Sindelfingen (Swabian: Sendlfenga) is a city in Baden-Württemberg in south Germany. It lies near Stuttgart at the headwaters of the Schwippe (a tributary of the river Würm), and is home to a Mercedes-Benz assembly plant.

History

The weaving industry survived until most of Europe's textile industry was devastated by Asian imports. Some textile distribution centres are still left in the city. Former weaving mills can still be found in the city area, now used as offices for the computer industry. This is due to the takeover of Hollerith by IBM which used the punched card technology from the weaving mills.

Geography

Neighbouring towns and cities: Böblingen (contiguous), Stuttgart (15 km), Leonberg. The highest point is 531 meters above sea level and to the north is the Glemswald (nature reserve).

Points of interest

Culture

Sindelfingen has an annual International Street Fair which features ethnic food and performances from the partner cities, as well as from various local ethnic clubs.

Demography

The resident counts below are either estimates, based upon census (*) or official records of respective statistical offices. All figures after 1871 are taken from the statistical office of Baden-Württemberg.[5]

YearResidents
1500 c. 1,000
1600 c. 1,400
1702 1,402
1803 2,981
1850 4,310
1861 3,804
1. December 1871* 3,704
1 December 1880* 3,934
1 December 1890* 4,239
1 December 1900* 4,291
1 December 1910* 4,589
16 June 1925* 5,394
16 June 1933* 6,986
YearResidents
17 May 1939* 8,465
1946 10,027
13 September 1950* 11,448
6 June 1961* 26,127
27 May 1970* 40,785
31 December 1975 54,134
31 December 1980 54,808
27 May 1987* 57,005
31 December 1990 58,805
31 December 1995 59,435
31 December 2000 60,843<--not a mistake-->
31 December 2005 60,843<--not a mistake! Source: Statistisches Landesamt Baden-Württemberg -->
31 December 2010 60,445<-- Source: Statistisches Landesamt Baden-Württemberg -->

Mercedes-Benz factory

The factory was founded in 1915 by Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft to produce aircraft engines, hence why the plant initially had a runway located onsite. Post-World War I the first passenger car was manufactured, following the merger with Benz & Cie. founded by Karl Benz. In 1926, the entire body shop of the new Daimler-Benz group was relocated to the Sindelfingen plant, allowing plant manager Wilhelm Friedle to introduce assembly line production the following year, and in 1929 the first press shop was opened. By 1938 the plant employed about 6,500 people, and in the lead-in to World War II most production was aligned to military contracts, mainly trucks such as the LC 3000; passenger car production ceased by 1942. Initially replacing male workers with local women, Mercedes then took forced labour, including prisoners of war. Western European prisoners were initially housed in near-by boarding houses, but with the start of the Eastern front the local Nazi administration formed the co-located Riedmühle concentration camp, which from 1942 loaned workers to the company in return for payment to the Nazi Government in Berlin. By 1944, almost half of Daimler Benz's 63,610 Daimler Benz employees were civilian forced labourers. Post-WW2, Daimler-Benz admitted its links with the Nazi regime, and became involved in the German Industry Foundation's initiative "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future".[6]

With heavy Allied bombing, the town and plant were not suitably reconstructed until late 1946, with resumed production of the Mercedes-Benz W136. Two-shift production was introduced from 1950, with the relocation of final car assembly to the plant, meaning that by 1955 80,500 cars were manufactured. The Mercedes-Benz W116 was first produced in 1972, the first model of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, which the plant still produces today as the current model Mercedes-Benz W223. Until 2015, the plant was the top-producing Daimler AG plant, when with 319,000 vehicles manufactured it was overtaken by the Bremen plant with 324,000.

Today, covering 2,955,944 m2 with a production area 1,305,557 m2, the 37,000 people employed (April 2016 – around 10,000 are research and development), the plant still produces over 300,000 vehicles per year, around 15% of total Daimler Group vehicle production. Second in production scale to Bremen in the Daimler Group, it is the third largest vehicle manufacturing plant in Germany, behind Volkswagen's Wolfsburg plant and the Audi plant at Ingolstadt.

Shooting

See main article: 2023 Mercedes-Benz factory shooting.

Transport

Sindelfingen can be reached through the A8 and A81 motorways, and through the S-Bahn connections to Stuttgart or Herrenberg. The nearest airport is the Stuttgart Airport.

Twin towns – sister cities

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Germany. Sindelfingen is twinned with:[7]

Sindelfingen also cooperates with the Eurotowns network.[8]

Notable people

Sport

Notes and References

  1. https://www.staatsanzeiger.de/staatsanzeiger/wahlen/buergermeisterwahlen/ Aktuelle Wahlergebnisse
  2. Web site: Sindelfingen . Eurotowns . 2012-10-02 . 2015-03-08.
  3. http://www.badezentrum.de/englisch/Index.html
  4. http://www.freienohler.de/personen/bonifatius_stirnberg.htm
  5. Web site: Fläche, Bevölkerung – Statistisches Landesamt Baden-Württemberg . Statistik.baden-wuerttemberg.de . 2015-03-08.
  6. Web site: Daimler-Benz in the Nazi Era (1933–1945) . daimler.com.
  7. Web site: Städtepartnerschaften. 15 November 2013 . Sindelfingen. de. 2024-04-17.
  8. Web site: Eurotowns . Eurotowns . 2015-03-08.