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

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

After completing his studies, Zuse took a position as a structural engineer at Henschel Flugzeugwerke, where he was tasked with extensive calculations for the design of structural frameworks. In May 1936, Zuse resigned from his position and subsequently worked as a freelance design engineer. During this time, with financial support from his family, he developed a program-controlled calculating machine. In 1938, Zuse completed his first experimental model, Model 1, which was later designated the Z1. This prototype was the world’s first freely programmable and program-controlled computer. It performed calculations fully automatically in the binary number system. The computer was mechanically operated and was therefore prone to errors. Zuse therefore developed a second prototype, the Z2, based on electromechanical relays.

At the start of World War II, Zuse was drafted into military service. With the help of friends, he was rehired in March 1940 as a structural engineer at Henschel Flugzeugwerke. Zuse became head of the structural engineering division within the development department led by Herbert A. Wagner and was granted “indispensable” status. At that time, Henschel’s development department was working on remote-controlled aerial bombs. As part of these projects, Konrad Zuse designed, on his own initiative, two fixed-program computing units that determined correction values for the control surfaces based on measurements of the aerodynamic surfaces. These computers became known as the S1 and S2. The Henschel 293 glide bomb was successfully deployed militarily starting in the summer of 1943, primarily against ships in the Mediterranean.

At the same time, Zuse was working on a new model of his computing machine. He had previously successfully demonstrated the Z2 computer at the German Aviation Research Institute (DVL). The DVL subsequently decided to co-finance Zuse’s new machine with 20,000 RM. He expanded his prototype in his apartment into the third model, known today as the Z3. On May 12, 1941, he presented the machine to a small group of scientists.

The Z3 was never put to practical use; instead, it remained in Zuse’s apartment for demonstration purposes and was destroyed during an air raid in 1943. In December 1941, the DVL provided Konrad Zuse with an additional loan of 50,000 RM. This budget was intended to fund the construction of a fully operational automatic computing machine. That same year, Zuse founded his own company, named “Dipl.-Ing. K. Zuse Ingenieursbüro und Apparatebau.” His company was recognized as a defense industry enterprise in November 1944. In total, Zuse’s research and inventions were subsidized with 250,000 to 300,000 Reichsmark.

In light of the development efforts and the increasingly difficult course of the war, the Ministry of Aviation issued a war contract of the highest urgency to Zuse in July 1943. His machine was to be made available to Henschel-Werke, although part of the rights to use it for further development of the device would remain with Zuse’s company.

In 1944, as part of the transition to a “total war economy,” the Reich Ministry of Armaments, under Minister Albert Speer, assumed authority over aircraft production. Consequently, Zuse’s automatic computing system was also subject to the directives of the Ministry of Armaments, which planned various expansions. However, the end of the war prevented the completion of the project, designated Z4.

A note in Zuse’s estate documents his considerations regarding alternative uses for his computing machines in the fields of eugenics and racial theory.

Even though his machines were not used in these areas, his reflections show that Zuse was very much in line with the research priorities of the “Third Reich” and considered using his technical innovations to support Nazi ideology. A letter from Zuse to his parents dated November 1945 shows that he was still steeped in National Socialist ideology even after the end of World War II.
In this letter, he recounts how he had urged his employees to resist the American troops—whom he referred to as enemies—to the very end and to refuse to surrender. If they were to surrender, he said, they would be considered deserters. He spoke in racist terms about the French soldiers.

After the end of World War II, no denazification proceedings were initiated against Zuse. In 1949, he sold his Z4 computer to the Institute for Applied Mathematics at ETH Zurich. This sale enabled him to resume his entrepreneurial activities and found Zuse KG. Between 1950 and 1964, he developed numerous electronic computers; however, production costs rose so sharply that his company became heavily indebted. In 1964, Brown Boveri & Cie (BBC) acquired 100 percent of the company’s shares. Three years later, Siemens acquired Zuse KG.

After Zuse left Zuse KG in 1967 at the age of 57, he devoted himself more to art and worked as a painter. He received numerous honors and awards, including the Bavarian Order of Maximilian in 1984 and the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany with Star and Sash 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 named after individuals, buildings, and facilities in the state capital of Wiesbaden, recommended contextualizing Konrad-Zuse-Straße, even though Zuse does not meet any of the criteria on which the commission based its decisions when formulating its recommendations in the criteria catalog. The Historical Expert Commission justified its recommendation to contextualize Konrad-Zuse-Straße by citing Zuse’s work in the German arms industry. On December 13, 2023, the responsible Wiesbaden-Nordenstadt local council had decided to contextualize the street. The city administration followed the recommendation of the Historical Expert Commission and the local council with a resolution dated March 24, 2026.