He spent his early years in the railway divisions of Bromberg, Cassel, Frankfurt am Main, Cologne and Berlin.
In 1902, at the instigation of Wittfeld, the Prussian railway administration and AEG began trials with single-phase alternating current for use as a source of traction.
The testing lasted until 1906 and took place on the 4.1 km long suburban route from Niederschöneweide to Spindlersfeld (near Berlin) using 6 kV 25 Hz AC.
Wittfeld was the first to recorgnise the importance of single-phase AC for electric traction and was a driving force behind the electrification of the first standard gauge railway in Germany from Dessau to Bitterfeld opened on 1 April 1911.
These designs and his perseverance earned Wittfeld the reputation of being a trailblazer in the field of electric train transportation.