Was Currywurst Invented In Berlin? – Mythbusting Berlin

Part number 199 398 500 A in the Volkswagen component catalogue bears the distinction of being the company’s most popular product, sold in-fact more than any individual car produced by the Wolfsburg-based firm. Neither a nut, nor a bot, nor a catalytic converter (a-hem), part number 199 398 500 A is actually a sausage.

Manufactured since 1973 and initially sold in the company canteen – before distribution expanded to supermarkets, stores, and football stadiums across Germany – this beechwood-smoked pork cylinder is the main component in what is arguably the most celebrated culinary concoction of post-war German cuisine – the humble Currywurst.

Around 20,000 sausages are produced per day by an in-house team of butchers, to be paired with a Volkswagen trademark tomato sauce (part 199 398 500 B). As the company’s factory in Wolfsburg is the largest factory in the world, with over 60,000 employees, that’s enough to make a substantial dent in the 6.7 million Volkswagen-branded currywurst sausages produced annually.

Every year, Germans eat an estimated 800 million portions of Currywurst – that breaks down to almost ten per person, per year.

Only a fraction of those originating from the Wolfsburg factory.

Although not everyone is a fan: former US President George W Bush famously pushed his Currywurst around his plate before leaving it mostly un-eaten when dining with then German chancellor (and devoted advocate of the Wurst) Gerhard Schröder in 2002.

As popular as it is in Germany at least, the provenance of the Currywurst is largely based on legend – with a Berlin kiosk owner named Herta Heuwer credited with introducing this combination of fried then chopped Bratwurst sausage and faintly tangy ketchup sauce, in September 1949.

Heuwer was born in 1913, the year before the start of WWI, in the city of Königsberg – the birthplace of Immanuel Kant, and where the Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick III, would crown himself the first King in Prussia in 1701.