Museum of Industry - presentation of the Siemens-Martin open-hearth
August-Sonntag-Straße 5
14770 Brandenburg an der Havel
Tel. (03381) 304646
Fax (03381) 304648
eMail-Contact 
Website 
Opening times
March to October Tuesday to Sunday/Holidays 10.00 - 17.00
November to February Tuesday to Sunday/Holidays 10.00 - 16.00
In the Brandenburg an der Havel Museum of Industry you can experience over 100 years of steelmaking history in Brandenburg.
The Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnace is a technical monument unique throughout Western Europe, the last publicly accessible surviving of its kind, with the associated facilities for feeding, smelting and casting - a monument to the industrial age.
The Museum of Industry presents three permanent exhibitions. The exhibition "Social and Political Aspects of a Century of Steel from Brandenburg" presents the history of the Brandenburg steelworks from 1914 to 2000. The presentation "From Iron to Steel" shows steel production from its beginnings to the present, the inventors of the open-hearth process are presented in the exhibition on the furnace platform. Former workshops, a master’s shop, a blacksmith, a laboratory and a steel workers home from the 1960s provide insight into the living and working conditions of the past.
Brennabor in the Museum of Industry
The name Brennabor is probably the most important link with the industrial business history of the city of Brandenburg an der Havel. Prams, bicycles, motorcycles and cars from the Brennabor works carried the name of the city of Brandenburg across the world.
In 1871 the brothers Adolf, Hermann and Carl Reichstein founded a factory for the production of hand-woven trollies and prams. In 1896 1,800 employees made about 75,000 prams annually. The works were thus one of the largest pram manufacturers in Europe, and held that position until the 1930s.
The production of bicycles began in 1882. The Reichstein brothers gave their bicycles the brand name Brennabor in 1892, the occasion was the First National Bicycle Exhibition in Leipzig. The Reichstein's were looking for a distinctive name with home appeal. Brennabor was at that time falsely seen as the old Slavic name of the town of Brandenburg. Bicycle production quickly accelerated. A total of 2.5 million bicycles were produced. Mass production of motorcycles began in 1902, and in 1903 the first car came out of the Brennabor works. In the early to mid-1920s the Brennabor works developed into Germany's largest car manufacturers. In both world wars production was focused on the arms industry and employed thousands of forced labourers. The Brennabor works, largely destroyed in spring 1945, were sequestered in 1946 by the Soviet military government and dismantled.
For more information see: www.brennabor-brb.de