The Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research was founded in Müncheberg, Germany in 1928 as part of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft. The founding director, Erwin Baur, initiated breeding programmes with fruits and berries, and basic research on Antirrhinum majus and the domestication of lupins. After the Second World War, the institute moved west to Voldagsen, and was relocated to new buildings on the present site in Cologne in 1955.