Steinwerder was once called Nordersand (North Sands) and was an island until the dike-building of the Middle Ages brought it into use as farmland. After the Great Fire of 1842 so much rubble was dumped on the island that it was raised significantly above river level. This led to the change of name to "Stone island". In the mid-19th century the first shipyards appeared in the district. A decisive turning point came in 1877 with the founding of the shipyard
Blohm & Voss. More followed. At the turn of the century, the harbour was further expanded. Steinwerder was badly damaged during the
bombing of Hamburg in World War II. After the Second World War, the British continued to demolish the shipyards of Steinwerder. Many of the large shipyards, including Stülcken and Schlieker, have disappeared and B&V is smaller than it used to be. In 1932 Hermann Blohm's sons founded the
Hamburger Flugzeugbau (HFB) to make all-metal aeroplanes in the shipyards, which were suffering from the global depression. For several years the HFB offices occupied the top floor of the B&V main headquarters in Steinwerder and the aircraft were manufactured at the Steinwerder works. When shipbuilding picked up again in the late 1930s the aircraft work was moved elsewhere. At around the same time, the aircraft business was reorganised as a subsidiary of Blohm & Voss. During the war the B&V site became a subcamp of
Neuengamme concentration camp. B&V's fortunes revived in 1952 when the City of Hamburg guaranteed credit to the B&V subsidiary Steinwerder Industrie AG, formed in 1950, to restart ship repairs and by 1953 some 900 workers were back in employment. B&V diversified into private yachts and offshore oil installations. The Eclipse built for the Russian billionaire
Roman Abramovich is, at in length, the second-longest private yacht in the world. B&V is no longer in private ownership. Today it is a subsidiary of
Lürssen and styles its name "Blohm+Voss". ==See also==