Traces of the Middle Stone Age at Reiterjoch testify that people lived in the municipal area as early as 5000 to 5700 BC. A prehistoric rampart castle stood at Burgstallegg east of Platten. Otherwise, the area was still largely forested and uninhabited.…

Around 1200, the settlement of Deutschnofen was probably completed, because by 1275 at the latest, people from the area were already migrating to the Fersental valley and to the Piné area in Trentino. According to this, land for the construction of new farms had already become scarce there. Already in 1434 the "lewtte und gemainschaft von Tewtschenofen" appear as an independently acting village cooperative in a customs dispute with the noble family Botsch.
In the area of Deutschnofen there are still about 260 farms, spread over the old quarters of Platz, Prent, Zelg, Unterkirch and Bühl. The number of farms that are no longer farmed is increasing. Agriculture is of great importance for the history of the commune. Since the high medieval settlement there was an almost exclusively peasant population on the plateau of Nova Ponente. The logs, which were transported in large quantities from the Deutschnofen court, were used by the citizens of Bolzano as firewood and by the winegrowers as vineyard wood. The columns on which two lions watch over St. Mark"s Square in Venice are said to have come from the wood of the Deutschnofen court. In 1614 Deutschnofen wood was supplied for the roof truss of the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna. In the beginning, the court in Deutschnofen was administered by noblemen. The most important were the lords of Niederthor. In 1849 the court of Nova Ponente was incorporated into the judicial district of Bolzano.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, and later in the 19th century, mining was also important. The economic life in the community changed completely after the Second World War. At the beginning of the 1950s, first the timber trade flourished, then crafts and construction were also very successful.
In former times the Brantental was the most important connection to Bolzano. There, mills, sawmills and inns were lined up next to each other. In 1850 it was planned to widen the road, but the project failed, as it did at the beginning of the First World War. In 1860 the road through the Val d"Ega was completed, which is still the most important arterial road today, while the Val di Brantino lost importance and was never extended.