Opelwerk Brandenburg

Devastated by an Allied air raid on 6 August 1944, the facilities were dismantled and shipped east as reparations to the Soviet Union after the war.

A press release early in 1935 stated that Adam Opel AG, backed by the Reich government, had decided to build a new plant at Brandenburg an der Havel because the existing Rüsselsheim headquarters was operating at full capacity.

Rapid progress was envisaged, with the factory scheduled to be ready for use in October 1935, in order to free up capacity at Rüsselsheim ahead of the launch of the 1936 passenger car range.

In July 1942 one of the company's rising talents was appointed to take over as production direction: Heinrich Nordhoff would later become more widely known as the leader who built up the Volkswagen business in Wolfsburg.

Between April 1937 and August 1944 the plant produced 82,356 Blitz 3.6-36 „S" (Standard for rear-wheel drive) 3-tonne trucks, plus a further 14,122 3.6-42 long-wheelbase versions and a further 8,336 low chassis models for special conversions: these were mostly destined to support bus bodies.

From 1942 onwards about 4,000 half-track (Maultier) and multiple rocket launcher (Panzerwerfer) versions were built mainly for the use on the Eastern Front; this model accounted for an overall production of approximately 130,000 units between 1940 and 1944.

Between 1940 and 1943 the chassis of the Wehrmacht medium standard passenger car (Einheits-PKW), an all-wheel drive vehicle for military use, which had been originally developed in 1935-36 by Auto Union as Horch 901 in Zwickau, was also assembled under licence at the Opel Brandenburg plant.