Silvio Gesell, the founder of Freiwirtschaft ("free economy"), lived in Oranienburg between 1911 and 1915, publishing his magazine, Der Physiocrat.

In 1936, the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on the outskirts of Oranienburg replaced it; there 200,000 people were interned over the nine years that the Nazis operated it.

[citation needed] Oranienburg became the center of Nazi Germany's nuclear-energy project because it was the location of the Auergesellschaft Oranienburg Plant, Germany's uranium production facility; the town also had an armaments hub, aircraft plant, and railway junction, all of military importance.

According to military historian Antony Beevor, Stalin's desire to acquire the nuclear facility motivated him to launch the Battle for Berlin[3] of April–May 1945.

It has been claimed that the pre-emptive destruction of these nuclear facilities by the USAAF Eighth Air Force on 15 March 1945 aimed to prevent them from falling into Soviet hands.

[4] On 23 April 1945, during the Battle of Berlin, troops of the 1st Belorussian Front of the Red Army captured Oranienburg.