The castle ”Wolfsburg” was first mentioned in 1302 in a document as the domicile of the noble lineage of Bartensleben. Originally a keep next to the Aller, it was protected by a moat some centuries later. In 1372, the first documentary reference to the Burg Neuhaus (castle of Neuhaus) near Wolfsburg appeared. After the extinction of the Bartensleben line in 1742, the property and its Schloss Wolfsburg (Wolfsburg Castle) passed on to the Earls of the Schulenburg. The communal manor was an important employer for the nearby settlements Rothenfelde and Heßlingen.
Some of today’s urban districts, including Heßlingen, belonged to the Duke of Magdeburg during the 18th century. In 1932, these districts were detached from the Prussian province Saxony and integrated in the administrative district of Lüneburg belonging to Hannover.
Other urban districts, like Vorsfelde and the villages transferred to Wolfsburg from the county of Helmstedt, belonged to the later Duke of Braunschweig (Brunswick) for centuries. Fallersleben and other villages belonged to the Electorate of Braunschweig – Lüneburg or the Kingdom of Hanover.
Wolfsburg was founded on 1 July 1938 as the Stadt des KdF-Wagens bei Fallersleben (English: City of the KdF Car at Fallersleben), a planned town centred around the village of Fallersleben, built to house workers of the Volkswagen (people’s car) factories erected to assemble the Volkswagen Beetle.
During World War II military cars, aeroplanes, and other military equipment were built there, mainly by forced workers and POWs.[citation needed]. In 1942, German authorities established the Arbeitsdorf concentration camp in the city for a few months.