Until the Reichswerke were founded in 1937, Watenstedt had been a typical agricultural village in the region for centuries. The decision taken in November 1937 to build a steelworks to the north of the village in order to satisfy the National Socialist desire for economic independence had drastic consequences for the village and its inhabitants.
The Reich Resettlement Society, founded for the purpose of procuring land, terminated the lease on the Watenstedt estate, took over entire farms with the associated land and relocated entire families to Koldingen and Pattensen. On December 15, 1937, the ground-breaking ceremony took place on the hut site. At the same time, work began on the construction of a dozen camps on the road towards Immendorf, which initially housed hired construction workers and later increasingly forced laborers and prisoners of war.
The population of Watenstedt multiplied within a very short space of time: while only 380 people lived in Watenstedt in 1933, ten years later there were almost 17,000.
When American troops marched into Watenstedt on April 11, 1945, the hut grounds were occupied, the camp residents were liberated and the camps initially housed Wehrmacht prisoners of war and "displaced persons" (people who had been forcibly displaced and were waiting to return to their home countries). From spring 1946, some of the camps served as a central distribution station for refugees and displaced persons assigned to the state of Braunschweig under the name Immendorf refugee camp.
The townscape of Watenstedt changed again with the barrack clearance program in the 1960s - entire streets disappeared from the map. The number of residents has also been shrinking since 1946. Most of the former camp residents moved into newly built apartments in Lebenstedt. But it took until 2002 before the last building was demolished.
In 1998, the Salzgitter city council decided to develop Watenstedt into an industrial estate.
With Alstom, MAN and Salzgitter AG, three of the five major companies based in Salzgitter already have their premises in Watenstedt. The district is almost completely surrounded by industrial facilities. In 2019, Projektgesellschaft Salzgitter-Watenstedt GmbH (PSW) (opens in a new tab) purchased the first plots of land from private owners.
