Feuerland

The word literally means “land of fire”, but it is also a play on the German name for Tierra del Fuego.

Many companies in the emerging metalworking and mechanical engineering industries settled in the area northeast of the Oranienburger Tor, one of the gates of the 18th-century Berlin Customs Wall, between Chausseestraße (today‘s Torstraße), Gartenstraße and Liesenstraße.

By 1847, 33 metalworking companies with over 3000 employees were located in this closely circumscribed area, and in 1852 the iron foundry and engineering works of Louis Victor Robert Schwartzkopff also started operations there.

Since all these businesses made heavy use of fire in the production process and huge amounts of smoke poured into the sky from the diverse chimneys, this part of the city was informally given the now forgotten name “Feuerland”.

Today, only a few street names (Borsigstraße, Pflugstraße, Schwartzkopffstraße and Wöhlertstraße) as well as a building or two remain as a memorial to those times.