Compelling Brandenburg

The 15 meters covered in the air near the village of Derwitz was a short flight for Otto Lilienthal, but it marked the beginning of an enduring success story – the history of Brandenburg as a region for aeronautical technology. Brandenburg is a place for pioneering technological achievement.

Today the aerospace industry counts as one of Brandenburg’s major growth industries. Famous names like Rolls Royce, MTU, Pratt & Whitney, Lufthansa and Bombardier are all represented here. Every two years Brandenburg organises one of the world’s leading aviation trade shows, the International Aerospace Exhibition. And it is in Brandenburg that the jet propulsion engines for the new Airbus A 400 M are now being built – compelling testimony to the enduring great tradition of aviation technology in the state.

But other high growth sectors have also recognised the measurable benefits that business location in Brandenburg can bring. In fact there is a wealth of good reasons for relocating in Brandenburg. To start with, the Berlin/Brandenburg region boasts the highest research density in the whole of Germany. With 7 universities, 21 technical universities and applied colleges, plus a further 250 scientific research establishments, Brandenburg offers ample space for fresh ideas and new talents to develop. It is certainly no coincidence that Brandenburg has a ratio of highly qualified skilled workers that is way above average.

What is more, Brandenburg also has the highest productivity level in the whole of eastern Germany. At the same time its labour costs are much lower and its working hours longer and more highly flexible than those of the West German states. Plus Brandenburg has the lowest corporation tax rate anywhere in Germany and the best investment promotion in Europe.

Another winning feature is the attractively central position the state now occupies in the newly enlarged European Union, with a new market of near to 100 million new customers practically on the doorstep. With a major part of goods transport between the European Union and Eastern Europe now being organised and dispatched in Berlin/Brandenburg, the region is rapidly becoming a key centre for logistics companies - a trend that shows how targeted investment in the overall infrastructure can pay dividends.

Ever since German Reunification work has continued on modernising and extending the road network. And with the rivers Oder, Spree, Havel and Elbe Brandenburg already has a superb natural waterway system. Its public transport and rail network is the largest transport and tariff authority in Germany.

With 200.000 kilometres of communication network, its data highway is the largest in Germany too. And with 100 percent digitalisation Brandenburg is way ahead even of the USA, while the new Berlin/Brandenburg International Airport (BBI) currently under construction at Schönefeld will turn the region into an major hub for international air traffic.

Otto Lilienthal, incidentally, always liked to emphasise the role “human aviation“ could play in bringing the different peoples of the world closer together. In one of his letters, for instance, he mused on how, in a time when people could fly, frontiers enclosing countries would loose their importance as they could no longer so readily be closed. Such optimistic predictions were also voiced in other areas too.

In 1906 in the town of Nauen the first experimental station for wireless telegraphy began operations. It was from here for the first time in Germany that voice and music was transmitted by wireless over a distance of 40 kilometres.

And the first broadcast of a Christmas concert from the Funkerberg in Königs-Wusterhausen in 1920 marked the birth of modern radio.

By the way, it was also from Nauen, where modern communication technology was first pioneered, that the most advanced short-wave station in Europe went on the air in 1997. From its station in Nauen the Deutsche Welle now broadcasts German language programmes to the whole world.

The history of German cinema, too, was largely “made in Brandenburg“. For nigh on 90 years now the studios at Potsdam-Babelsberg have been making movie classics like “Metropolis”, “The Blue Angel“ or “The Fire Tongue Bowl“. Immortal movie legends like Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder and Marlene Dietrich scored their first triumphant successes here, having German audiences – and later American ones – at their feet.

These days Brandenburg plays host to a steady flow of top Hollywood stars. Tom Cruise is coming here to shoot “Mission Impossible III”. Jackie Chan flew in for “Around the World in 80 Days”. Matt Damon, John Malkovich, Catherine Zeta-Jones – the roll-call of international stars goes on and on. More and more major international productions are now being shot in Brandenburg. Roman Polanski’s triple Oscar-winning “The Pianist“ was shot in Babelsberg as was Jean-Jacques Annaud’s "Duel - Enemy at the Gates", the most expensive European production to date with a budget of over Euro 90 million. Today media city Babelsberg hosts 13 state-of-the-art studios for cinema and TV productions and no less than 130 different companies working in the motion picture industry.

But apart from the “stars of the silver screen” Brandenburg also has “stars” in quite a different category – its private-sector companies. Throughout the whole region, the entrepreneurial spirit and sheer creative force of the whole private sector – from major international concerns to numerous medium-sized enterprises – are bringing innovative new developments to the forefront.

Take the town of Falkenhagen, for instance, where Concert GmbH, a subsidiary of the Canadian firm Concert Industries, has successfully launched production of "airlaid“, a special kind of thermal or latex-bonded cellulose paper. The Leipa Papierwerke at Lauchhammer is likewise on the up and up with investment to the tune of Euro 350 million alone for 2003.

Or take the town of Ludwigsfelde in the Teltow-Fläming district which has shown itself a real powerhouse and with more than 600 companies to its credit is now one of the top addresses in Brandenburg. DaimlerChrysler has been making its “Vaneo“ mini MPV here since 2001 and will shortly be going into production in Ludwigsfelde with the “Sprinter“. VW plans to set up its logistics center for original spare parts for the whole of east Germany here too. The region was especially delighted to receive the distinction of being named as one of the new “quiet stars“ among German industrial regions in a business survey by the renowned Prognos Institute in Bern.

These are just a few of the success stories that could be told. Similar reports come in from across the whole spectrum of industry in Brandenburg spanning the chemicals industry, the automotive and aerospace industries, biotechnology and life sciences, the food industry, energy, environment and microtechnology, information and telecom technology and the service sector.

It is a fact, Brandenburg is booming. And whoever takes the trouble to examine the region in depth, will readily agree with the poet Theodor Fontane who wrote in his “Walking Tours in the Mark Brandenburg“:

“I have travelled the length and breadth of the Mark and found it all much much richer than I ever dared to imagine.“