History of Walldorf: From Waltdorf to SAP

Walldorf, a town of about 16,000 people south of Heidelberg in Baden-Württemberg, has a recorded history of more than 1,250 years. For most of that time it was a farming village of the Electoral Palatinate. Two things put it on the world map: the emigrant John Jacob Astor, born here in 1763, and the software company SAP, which moved here in 1977. This page summarises the main stages, with dates checked against standard references (see the note at the end).

First mention and the Middle Ages

Walldorf first appears in writing on 20 October 770, as Waltdorf, in the Lorsch Codex — the register of donations to Lorsch Abbey that also contains the earliest mentions of many other villages in the Rhine-Neckar area. The name is usually read as "village by the forest", and the town still has large areas of woodland on its western side. Archaeological finds show that the area was settled much earlier: Roman pottery, roof tiles and water pipes excavated in Walldorf are on display in the local museum.

In the high and late Middle Ages Walldorf came under the Electoral Palatinate (Kurpfalz), whose rulers resided in nearby Heidelberg. Its economy rested on arable farming on the light, sandy soils of the Rhine terrace; later crops included tobacco, hops and asparagus.

Reformation, wars and rebuilding

As part of the Palatinate, Walldorf followed the religious changes decreed by its rulers after the Reformation. The region was badly hit by the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and again by the War of the Palatine Succession (1688–1697), when French troops devastated much of the Palatinate. Several of the buildings visitors see today date from the recovery in the 18th century: the former Reformed church of 1716 (later the synagogue), the Laurentiuskapelle of 1783 and the late-Baroque Catholic church of St. Peter, built in 1787.

The Astor connection

Johann Jakob Astor was born in Walldorf on 17 July 1763, the son of a butcher. In 1779, aged sixteen, he left for London, where his brother George made musical instruments, and in 1784 he reached the United States. As John Jacob Astor he built a fur-trading business that reached from New York to the Great Lakes and, through his Pacific Fur Company, to the mouth of the Columbia River, where the trading post of Astoria, Oregon was founded in 1811. He later invested heavily in Manhattan real estate and was regarded as the richest man in the United States when he died in 1848.

Astor did not forget his birthplace. His will left $50,000 to Walldorf, and the money was used to build the Astorhaus, opened on 9 July 1854 as a home for the poor and for orphans. It served that purpose until 1936 and today houses the local history museum (more on the Astorhaus and the Astor names). Astor's great-grandson William Waldorf Astor named his New York hotel, opened in 1893, the Waldorf after the family's home town; joined with the neighbouring Astoria hotel it became the Waldorf-Astoria — which in turn gave its name to the Waldorf salad. Walldorf has been twinned with Astoria, Oregon, since 1963.

Baden, the railway and town rights

With the reorganisation of Germany in the Napoleonic era, the right-bank Palatinate including Walldorf passed to Baden in 1803. In the 1840s the Rhine Valley railway between Heidelberg and Karlsruhe opened, with a station between Walldorf and Wiesloch; a local tram (horse-drawn from 1902, electric from 1907) linked the town to it until 1954. On 2 September 1901 Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden granted Walldorf the status of a town (Stadt) — an anniversary the town is celebrating in 2026.

Walldorf also had a Jewish community, which in 1861 acquired the former Reformed church of 1716 as its synagogue.

The 20th century

Under National Socialism, Walldorf's Jewish residents were persecuted like Jews across Germany. During the November pogrom of 1938 the interior of the synagogue was destroyed and Jewish men were taken to Dachau concentration camp; in October 1940 the remaining Jewish residents were deported to the Gurs camp in southern France in the so-called Wagner-Bürckel action. Stolpersteine (memorial stones) in the pavements now commemorate them. After the war the former synagogue was used by the New Apostolic Church from 1954 to 2018.

In the post-war decades Walldorf grew with the West German economy. Its position at the junction of the A5 and A6 motorways and on the main railway made it attractive for industry: Heidelberger Druckmaschinen built a large plant in the Walldorf/Wiesloch industrial area, and IKEA opened a store beside the A5.

SAP comes to Walldorf

In 1972 five former IBM employees — Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tschira and Claus Wellenreuther — founded "Systemanalyse Programmentwicklung" in Weinheim, initially working from an office in Mannheim and largely at customers' sites. In 1976 the company became SAP GmbH, and in 1977 it moved its seat to Walldorf; from 1980 it had its own building and data centre there. SAP went public in 1988 and grew into one of the world's largest software companies. Its headquarters campus remains in Walldorf (see SAP in Walldorf), and the company's arrival turned the town into a regional employment centre with roughly as many jobs as inhabitants.

Timeline

Last reviewed on 5 October 2026.