The Messingwerksiedlung is one of the oldest industrial estates in the Mark Brandenburg region. Today, though, it is an attractive residential area by the Finowkanal, and few other locations boast such a wealth of industrial monuments. All the way back in 1700, Elector Frederick III had Brandenburg-Prussia’s first brass works built in Heegermühle, relocated to its present site in 1721. In the beginning the factory principally produced brass boilers, sheets and wire, as well as lots of manufactured goods, and it later became a key munitions factory. In the 1863 the Jewish entrepreneurial family Hirsch purchased the factory along with its estate, and in the decades that followed it underwent enormous growth. The Hirsch family also had a great deal of influence on social life in the estate. In 1915 the brass works left the miners’ association with the Eisenspalterei ironworks, a forerunner of modern social security founded in 1811, and set up its own insurance fund for its workforce. The Hirsch Kupfer- und Messingwerke (HKM) made a considerable contribution to this, as well as creating housing for employees, and in the following years building its own farm. The increase in munitions orders demanded more production and living space, a project commissioned to Berlin architects Paul Mebes and Paul Emmerich, who put their names to various buildings in the estate. Paul Mebes also designed the facade of the new plant comprising two huge hall complexes, and work on the building started in 1917. Production began in 1920, and by 1929 it was Europe’s largest and most powerful brass works. In 1932, however, the Hirsch family found themselves in financial difficulties and withdrew from the helm of the company. The new plant was mostly disassembled in 1945 and 1946. Its foundations served as the basis for East Germany’s most modern hot-strip mill, which continued its production as Walzwerk Finow GmbH from German reunification until 2012.
