News
Sounds from another dimension
How the Subharchord lives on:
Gerhard Steinke co-developed the Subharchord, one of East Germany’s most enigmatic instruments. Steinke passed away on 26 May 2025, but his work lives on. “Music and sound only come into being through listening. When…
In conversation with Ulrich Unger
The former airline pilot is committed to preserving the heritage of German aviation history:
His enthusiasm for the early beginnings of the “flying machines” and for the life’s work of Germany’s first female pilot, Amelie (Melli) Hedwig Boutard-Beese, is infectious. Ulrich Unger is a retired airline captain…
In Memoriam Klaus Thiessen
Optoelectronics specialist and solar energy pioneer:
Professor Klaus Thiessen passed away on 3 July 2025 at the age of nearly 98. The internationally recognised expert in optoelectronics remained a committed bridge-builder between science, industry, and society well…
Trailblazing spirit without role models
A book series about East Germany takes up the success story of the Adlershof Technology Park:
Adlershof is more than a tech site. It’s a symbol of what East Germany can achieve when courage, creativity and political will come together. The book series Denke ich anOstdeutschland … takes up this theme. When the…
New Book: “Earning money with knowledge”—the economic history of Berlin-Adlershof
Published in German:
Berlin-Adlershof – today synonymous with innovation, high-tech, and economic excellence – but the path to get there was by no means predetermined. What began in 1991 as a tentative new start on the ruins of a bygone…
Broken but not Defeated – The Adlershof Pioneers
After 1990, GDR scientists such as Christine Wedler and Norbert Langhoff turned Adlershof into an economic success story:
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, many scientists in the former East Germany suddenly found themselves without any prospects. This was the case for Christine Wedler and Norbert Langhoff when they had to start over –…
AEMtec GmbH celebrates 25 years of innovation
Strengthening management with Robert Giertz:
A quarter century of pioneering spirit and technological excellence: AEMtec GmbH, one of the leading specialists in the development and production of micro- and optoelectronics, proudly celebrates its 25th anniversary…
A bandage on many wounds
The life of Etty Hillesum was recently filmed at the studios of the LichtHaus Group:
At Gross-Berliner Damm 83a, the Johannisthal film studio of the LichtHaus Group spans 1,300 square metres and is just 500 metres from the historic Johannisthaler Filmanstalten, or Jofa film studios. It was here that,…
20 years of promoting science in the school lab
38,000 schoolchildren visited the school lab at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin:
Twenty years ago, on 29 November 2004, Klaus Böger, then Senator for Education in Berlin, opened one of the capital's first school laboratories. Since then, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), in cooperation with the…
Research institute IRIS Adlershof ended
After 15 years, the funding phases for the “Integrative Research Institute for the Sciences” at HU Berlin have been completed:
Since its founding in 2009, the Integrative Research Institute for the Sciences of Humboldt University in Berlin – IRIS Adlershof – looks back on 15 years of successful work. IRIS Adlershof has developed into an…
Living like in a village community
The Student Village Adlershof opened ten years ago:
Wood-clad façades with an accordion look, colourful blinds, and floor-to-ceiling windows: Construction on the Student Village Adlershof was completed ten years ago. Since then, 400 students from all over the world…
DLR’s Mars camera – 20 years of operations
The first image was transmitted to Earth on 10 January 2004:
An extraordinary success story, and a long-lasting one at that. For 20 years now, DLR's High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board the European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express orbiter has been providing the science…
40 Years of Metrology with Synchrotron Radiation at PTB
It all began with a publication on PTB's radiometry laboratory at the former Berlin storage ring BESSY I from 1983 and became a success story:
On November 14, 2023, the 322nd PTB Seminar on VUV and EUV Metrology hosted a commemorative event on "40 years of metrology with synchrotron radiation". The occasion was the first publication on PTB's radiometry…
Happy Birthday BESSY II
A conversation about 25 years of the high-brilliance radiation source in Adlershof:
BESSY II is a synchrotron, a storage ring, a high-brilliance radiation source. Or as Bernd Rech puts it: a high-tech X-ray microscope. For 25 years, it has been helping researchers from all over the world to uncover…
Localiser – 5 years of successful planning of charging infrastructure
Spin-off from the Reiner Lemoine Institute celebrates company anniversary:
On September 11th, the employees of Localiser GmbH celebrated their 5th anniversary. Localiser is a spin-off from the Reiner Lemoine Institute: In September 2018, Kathrin Goldammer and Oliver Arnhold founded the…
Welcome succession
The next generation takes over the management of Ahlberg Metalltechnik and Legler Objekt & Konzept:
Mario Ahlberg and Heike Legler have created two very successful companies, Ahlberg Metalltechnik GmbH and Legler Objekt & Konzept GmbH. They are both stepping back to let the next generation take the helm – and…
A veteran of Adlershof
Biophysicist Helge Neumann says goodbye – the long-standing head of the WISTA International Office has carried the Adlershof model out into the world:
There are countless issues that Helge Neumann has addressed during his time in Adlershof. The biophysicist has been part of WISTA now for over 30 years. As different as his projects were, they were all characterised…
A box full of memories
Sabine Berger was an animator on GDR television. An exhibition at Theater Ost commemorates the start of broadcasting:
Guten Abend, verehrte Fernsehfreunde – good evening, dear TV fans – were the fairly unspectacular words that launched the first two-hour broadcasts of German television in the former Soviet occupation zone, uttered by…
Scienion and Adlershof grew in parallel
“We know how to handle even the divas among the molecules”:
When I first started telling my staff that we would relocate to Adlershof, they were dumbfounded. They asked if I had lost my mind,” says Holger Eickhoff. “Back then, everything here had the same address. There were…
A driving force
30 years of IGAFA, the Joint Initiative of Non-University Affiliated Research Institutes in Adlershof e.V.:
A name that says it all: The Joint Initiative of Non-University Affiliated Research Institutes in Adlershof e.V. (IGAFA) was a driving force behind establishing Adlershof as a location for high technology. It…