The park was built from 1893 to 1899 on the then called Fink mountain hill and was inaugurated on May 13, 1899. During the construction of the Imperial Shipyard, the excavation had been deposited from the shipyard basins and a hilly terrain was created, which was terraced during the construction of the park. The main entrance to the park was on Kaiserstraße. In 1921, the city of Kiel took over the park from the Wohlfahrtsverein and transformed it into a people's park from 1923 onwards, according to the plans of City Planning Officer Willy Hahn and garden architect Leberecht Migge. In the time of the national socialism the yard park was renamed in Horst Wessel park and strongly destroyed during the air raids on Kiel during the Second World War. In the first street renaming action after the war, the park was given back its name in June 1945 Werftpark. In December 1947, the city representative meeting decided its current name Volkspark.
