Heinrich Focke developed the first truly efficient helicopter in Bremen. Its great advantage: the invention of autorotation enabled it to take off and land vertically. The aircraft designer is considered a helicopter pioneer. When the National Socialists asked him to produce combat aircraft in large quantities, Focke refused. For this reason, he was forced out of the company he had co-founded. He subsequently specialised even more in the development of helicopters. The history of aviation in Bremen continued: in 1971, the VFW 614 took off on its first scheduled flight. It was the first aircraft developed in the Federal Republic of Germany after the Second World War to be used in scheduled operations.
More than almost any other federal state, Bremen is developing economically around science and technology-intensive cluster areas. Key sectors such as aerospace, maritime industry and logistics, renewable energy, automotive, food and beverage and healthcare are complemented by fields of innovation such as digitalisation and artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous systems and robotics, lightweight construction and additive manufacturing, biotechnology, metrology and simulation as well as hydrogen technologies.
