On February 4, 2003, a traffic area in Nordenstadt was named after the engineer and entrepreneur Konrad Zuse (1910-1995) by resolution of the Wiesbaden City Council.

Konrad Zuse was born on June 22, 1910 in Wilmersdorf (now Berlin-Wilmersdorf) as the son of a postal clerk. Zuse graduated from the Reformgymnasium in Hoyerswerda in Upper Lusatia in 1928. In the same year, he began studying mechanical engineering at the Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg, subsequently switching to architecture and graduating in 1935 with a degree in civil engineering.

After completing his studies, Zuse accepted a position as a structural engineer at Henschel Flugzeugwerke, where he was commissioned to carry out extensive calculations for the construction of supporting structures. In May 1936, Zuse resigned from his job and subsequently worked as a freelance designer. During this time, he developed a program-controlled calculator with the financial help of his family. In 1938, Zuse completed his first experimental model 1, which was later known as the Z1. This prototype was the world's first freely programmable and program-controlled computer. It calculated fully automatically in the binary number system. The computer was mechanically operated and was therefore prone to errors. Zuse therefore developed a second prototype, Z2, based on electromechanical relays.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Zuse was called up for military service. With the help of friends, he was once again employed as a structural engineer at Henschel Flugzeugwerke in March 1940. Zuse became head of the statics division in the development department headed by Herbert A. Wagner and was given the status "indispensable". Henschel's development department was working on remote-controlled flying bombs at the time. As part of these projects, Konrad Zuse designed two hard-coded calculators on his own initiative, which determined correction values for the tail units based on measurements of the aerodynamic surfaces. These computers became known as S1 and S2. The Henschel 293 glide bomb was used successfully from the summer of 1943, particularly against ships in the Mediterranean.

Zuse also worked on a new model of his calculating machine. He had previously successfully demonstrated the Z2 computer at the German Aviation Research Institute (DVL). The DVL then decided to co-finance Zuse's new machine with 20,000 RM. He developed his test model into the third model, now known as the Z3, in his apartment. On May 12, 1941, he presented the machine to a small circle of scientists.

The Z3 was never used in practice, but remained in Zuse's apartment for demonstration purposes and was destroyed in an air raid in 1943. In December 1941, the DVL provided Konrad Zuse with a further loan of 50,000 RM. This budget was to be used to build a fully operational automatic calculating machine. In the same year, Zuse founded his own company under the name "Dipl.-Ing. K. Zuse Ingenieursbüro und Apparatebau". His company was recognized as a military economic enterprise in November 1944. Zuse's research and inventions were subsidized with a total of 250,000 to 300,000 Reichsmarks.

In the course of the development effort and the increasingly difficult course of the war, Zuse received a war order from the Ministry of Aviation in July 1943 with the utmost urgency. His machine was to be made available to Henschel-Werke, with part of the use for further development of the device also lying with Zuse's company.

In 1944, the Reich Armaments Ministry under Minister Albert Speer assumed authority over aircraft production as part of the transition to a "total war economy". Zuse's automatic calculator system was subsequently also subject to the instructions of the Ministry of Armaments, which planned various expansions. However, the end of the war prevented the completion of the project known as Z4.

A note in Zuse's estate documents considerations for the alternative use of his calculating machines in the field of eugenics and racial theory.

Even if his machines were not used in these areas, his considerations show that Zuse was certainly thinking in terms of the research priorities of the "Third Reich" and was considering supporting National Socialist ideology with his technical innovations. A letter Zuse wrote to his parents in November 1945 shows that he was still imbued with National Socialist ideas even after the end of the Second World War.
In this letter, he reports how he had called on his employees to oppose the American troops, whom he described as enemies, to the last and not to surrender. If they surrendered, they would be considered desserts. He spoke in racist terms about the French soldiers.

After the end of the Second World War, no proceedings were opened against Zuse. In 1949, he sold his Z4 computer to the Institute for Applied Mathematics at ETH Zurich. This sale enabled him to become an entrepreneur again and found Zuse KG. Although he developed numerous electronic computers between 1950 and 1964, production costs rose so sharply that his company was heavily in debt. In 1964, Brown Boveri und Cie (BBC) took over one hundred percent of the capital shares. Three years later, Siemens bought Zuse KG.

After Zuse left Zuse KG in 1967 at the age of 57, he devoted himself increasingly to art and was active as a painter. He received numerous honors and awards, including the Bavarian Maximilian Order in 1984 and the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany with Star and Shoulder Ribbon in 1995. Konrad Zuse died on December 18, 1995 in Hünfeld.

The Historical Expert Commission appointed by resolution of the City Council in 2020 to review traffic areas, buildings and facilities named after people in the state capital of Wiesbaden recommended the contextualization of Konrad-Zuse-Straße, although Zuse does not touch on any of the criteria on which the expert commission's decisions for formulating its recommendations in the criteria catalog were based. The recommendation to contextualize Konrad-Zuse-Straße was based on Zuse's activities in the German armaments industry.