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Templehof Airport Tour - The Mother of All Airports lives and dies in Berlin
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by phoenixesrose | July 14, 2008 at 09:17 am
2305 views | 20 Recommendations | 9 comments
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Recently, I was lucky enough to participate in a tour of Berlin's Templehof Airport. Called the Mother of All Airports, Berlin's Templehof airport will close in the Fall of 2008 and become well, we don't yet know what.
To understand Templehof airport, you need to understand that it has, after nearly 300 years, become an integral part of Berlin's culture and history. Pre WW2, the airport was used as a Royal Prussian parade ground starting in and around the 1700's. From around 1895 to 1918, in between being used as a parade ground, the airport served as a demonstration area for hot air balloons, airships and aircraft. It was also was
the scene of an Orville Wright air-show in 1909, of zeppelin flights in the thirties, and in 1948 - 49, of the Berlin air-lift – when American and British “candy-bombers” landed and launched here every three minutes to save West Germany’s spiritual capital from Communist oblivion. It was the scene of Berlin's Dunkirk. We damn well wanted to see it.
Now Tempelhof has fallen on uncertain times. It has recently been struck down by the apathy of the people of Berlin, who in an April referendum could not muster enough nostalgia to force the Berlin senate to reconsider its decision to close it down.
The senate’s plan is to redirect all business to the Berlin-Brandenburg International (BBI) mega-port that will, in the next few years, consume and replace Schönefeld on the south-eastern outskirts of town. Tegel, a very convenient and well-travelled airport to the north-west of the city, will also fall victim to this behemoth, though with a lot less protest. Tempelhof will probably be turned into a museum next to a huge, very flat park.
But despite the final defeat, Tempelhof’s demise has not come without a fight. The referendum was forced by a heroic street-initiative that collected 200,000 signatures. Only then did Merkel's CDU realise there was electoral capital to be gained from the airport, and mobilised a heavy-duty advertising campaign and enlisted a host of B-List celebrities in aid of the threatened airport. In opinion polls, anything up to 75 percent of Berliners said they wanted to keep it open.
The thing is though, that the airport - at the referendum in April - didn't get enough votes to stay open. Just over 500,000 Berliners voted to keep the options open - less than 25% of the electorate even bothered to turn up. So, the airport is closing, and facing a slow painful death.
So, why was it so important to me to go on this tour? For me, Templehof airport is a glimpse into the past. It's a glimpse into the 1920's, a world of flappers, jazz music, modern art-deco architecture. A world where architecture plans were dominated and changed repeatedly by the third reich, planned in part by Hitler, and dreamed of by the Germans as they hoped to embark on a larger than life (and ill fated) bit of glory in the form of WW2. It was a part of a world where the cold war split a city in two, dropped aid from the sky for years, and, when the wall fell - helped to reunite the city by becoming a way for everyone to travel to/from the airport at the same time as other - more modern - airports were built. This was a chance to document history as it prepares to change - all in the name of progress.
The site of the airport was originally Knights Templar land in medieval Berlin, and from this beginning came the name Tempelhof. Later, the site was used as a parade field by Prussian forces, and by unified German forces from 1720 to the start of World War I. In 1909, Frenchman Armand Zipfel made the first flight demonstration in Tempelhof, followed by Orville Wright later that same year. [1] Tempelhof was first officially designated as an airport on 8 October 1923. Lufthansa was founded in Tempelhof on 6 January 1926.
The old terminal, originally constructed in 1927, received politicians and celebrities from around the world during the 1930s. As part of Albert Speer's plan for the reconstruction of Berlin during the Nazi era, Prof. Ernst Sagebiel was ordered to replace the old terminal with a new terminal building in 1934.
The airport halls and the neighbouring buildings, intended to become the gateway to Europe and a symbol of Hitler's "world capital" Germania, are still known as the largest built entities worldwide, and have been described by British architect Sir Norman Foster as "the mother of all airports". With its façades of shell limestone, the terminal building, built between 1936 and 1941, forms a massive 1.2-kilometre long quadrant yet has a charmingly intimate feel; planes can taxi right up to the building and unload, sheltered from the weather by its enormous overhanging canopy. Passengers walk through customs controls and find themselves in a dazzlingly simple and luminous reception hall. Tempelhof is served conveniently by the U6 U-Bahn line along Mehringdamm and up Friedrichstraße (Platz der Luftbrücke station).
Zentralflughafen Tempelhof-Berlin had an advantage of central location just minutes from the heart of Berlin and quickly became one of the world's busiest airports. Tempelhof saw its greatest pre-war days during 1938–1939 when more than 52 foreign and 40 domestic aircraft arrived and departed daily.
The air terminal was designed as headquarters for Deutsche Lufthansa, the German national airline. As a forerunner of today's modern airports, the building was designed with many unique features including giant arc-shaped hangars for aircraft parking. Although under construction for more than ten years, it was never finished because of World War II.
The building complex was designed to resemble an eagle in flight with semicircular hangars forming the bird's spread wings. A mile long hangar roof was to have been laid in tiers to form a stadium for spectators at air and ground demonstrations for up to one million people.
All of the pictures attached on this are my own, and copyright by me. I hope you will take a minute to look, think and read of the history of this mighty airport which is being closed in the name of progress. There are no plans to tear down portions of it - yet. Most of it is historically protected, including the green space where the runways and tarmacs currently are. However, this site is endangered - because once it's closed, with no buyers, and no plans (other than the green space becoming a park) - it will surely be left to rot - much like many other buildings in the city.
So, it is that we in Berlin are saying good bye to an old friend. Templehof airport was never finished, the plans are there - the ideas are there - and had it been finished, it truly would have been a timeless masterpiece dedicated to one thing we humans can't do - FLY.
More pictures at: My Flickr Site
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (9)
at 13:30 on July 14th, 2008
phoenixesrose, this is fascinating. Great photos.
at 00:33 on July 15th, 2008
phoenixesrose, I like this story. It's good stuff.
Never to late to finish it and make a great museum out of it!
at 09:38 on July 16th, 2008
Thanks for reading and checking it out. I'm really glad I could share it.
at 09:40 on July 16th, 2008
That's been proposed, however, it's doubtful that the entire thing would be used for that. There's an entire ISLAND devoted to nothing but museums in the center of Berlin. Part may be a museum, but this is nearly 1 mile around - and 7 floors high. That's alot of floor space!
at 12:06 on July 16th, 2008
Hi, i just wondered how you went about going on this tour of Tempelhof. I have been trying to find out where to ask about this tour but as of yet been uneventful.
Can you please help so i can get in touch with them and also go on the tour.
Thanks
at 09:58 on July 17th, 2008
I was lucky and knew a group who knew someone who knew someone. I'd suggest calling and asking the airport authority for a tour. They do them for some groups - but there is a fee if you want to be able to take pictures.
at 19:58 on October 31st, 2008
I cannot believe the people of Berlin - who in a very great way - owe their survival at the end of WWII and Templehof Airport during the airlift - would care so little for a landmark that meant so much to them, their parents, their grandparents, and their families.
At least get of your posteriors and turn this airport into a museum - it has superb floor space and the building is sound - it's architecture is magnificent - and it's history is integral to Berlin.
Of course there are negative and sad memories and associations - isn't that true of almost every building and space in Berlin?? There are also positive and joyful memories and associations - and that also could be in every building and space in Berlin.
Don't let such a magnificent structure go to rot.....you can't tell me, in a city like Berlin, there isn't enough money, pride, and need - to preserve a building that can be used for the welfare of the people of the city of Berline......
at 20:32 on October 31st, 2008
FOUND THIS ON ANOTHER WEBSITE....FYI - PEOPLE OF BERLIN!! These are from Americans - who live in the U.S. who have a love of Tempelhof and Berlin - don't lose your heritage.........don't let it be more destroyed than it has been
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I understand Templehof Airport in Berlin is being closed next month or am I again be.....hind in my news? If it is to be closed, if it hasn't been already, why is this historic aerodrome being shut down? This airport probably has more history involving it than any other airport in the world. Please tell me that at least Berlin officials will retain the passenger terminal in some form so that all of us may be able to continue to touch German aviation history regarding Templehof. How have the aviation minded people of Germany reacted to the closing? Has their been any outcry to the termination of his historical aviation landmark? I call on all classic airliner operators in Europe to fly their wonderful aircraft into Templehof on the last day of operations and protest the move to shut it down.
I swear that if I had the means to do it, I would travel to Berlin myself and stage a one man sit-in to demonstrate against the closure!
I am really angry over this move against Templehof!
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Oh , during the days prior to the war Templehof was probably the major commercial airport in Germany if not all of Europe. I still remember the dozens of airliners very neatly parked adjacent to the great curving passenger terminal, the site of major international air travel. It was a montage of Douglas DC-3's, Ju-52's operated by Deutch Lufthansa, and of course the giant Junkers G-38. I'm sure there were even Focke Wulf 'Condor' passenger airliners on the tarmac. Templehof at that time was a frenzy of exciting commercial air travel. During the war yes, it may possibly have been turned over to the military but even then I would imagine commercial traffic may have been intermixed carrying government officials and attache's. I remember seeing early photographs of Templehof and its very unique circular landing field. When our airport in San Diego was in the first stages of being designed in the 1920's it too was to have a circular field but in the final stages of design that idea was discarded for the standard type runway. No, Templehof was the classic airfield of its day...and a very historic one at that. That's why I feel so bitter at the thought of it being closed down.
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at 20:38 on October 31st, 2008
This is what I originally saw in Spiegel in May - what happened to the move about an Allied Museum moving to Tempelhof........shouldn't this be pursued by the people of Berlin??? All three of the posts I have sent - should be forwarded to the Berlin papers - so people will know what they are losing if they don't take action SOON!!!!!!!!!!! By the way, you should think about replacing your Mayor.......if he doesn't value Tempelhof - he doesn't value history......
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05/02/2008 04:57 PM
A FUTURE FOR BERLIN'S COLD WAR ICON? Allied Museum Wants to Move into Tempelhof AirportBy R. Jay Magill, Jr. in Berlin Berlin's Tempelhof Airport is set to close after those campaigning to keep it open failed to win a referendum last weekend. Now Berlin's Allied Museum has said it would like to move into the building which West Berliners will forever associate with the 1948-1949 Berlin Airlift.In the run-up to the recent referendum on the future of Berlin's Tempelhof Airport, proponents of keeping the loss-making airport open pushed all the nostalgic and emotional buttons, arguing that the airport has a unique place in the history of the city due to its role in the Berlin Airlift.
But their efforts were in vain. The pro-Tempelhof camp failed to reach the necessary threshold of 25 percent of the city's registered voters, and they lost the referendum.
But even if the airport now looks set to close in October, its historic role during the Cold War may still be remembered: Berlin's Allied Museum has expressed interest in moving into the colossal building.
"It's a crucial location for the history of Germany after World War II, and the history of American-German relations," museum director Helmut Trotnow told SPIEGEL ONLINE. Allied planes saved West Berliners cut off by the 1948-1949 Soviet blockade by flying in thousands of tons of food and supplies every day for several months. For this reason, he says, the museum "would like to be part of a discussion about what would go into Tempelhof."
As well as the historical aptness of the Allied Museum being located in the airport, there's also a very practical reason why the it would like to move: space. "There are scores of objects and items from Allied daily life, over several decades, to be displayed, parts of everyday history you would not see anywhere else -- and we just don't have the space any more," Trotnow says, explaining that 30 percent of the museum's collection cannot be displayed due to lack of space.
The Allied Museum, located approximately 12 kilometers (6 miles) southwest of Tempelhof in the Berlin neighborhood of Zehlendorf, opened in 1998 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift. Spread over two buildings -- including the Outpost Theater which was built by the US army in 1952 and since designated a historical landmark -- the museum sees between 60,000 and 70,000 visitors a year.
But the museum is in some ways a victim of its own success. "These facilities just are not rigged up for that sort of traffic," Trotnow says. "We are still in a provisional situation. The establishment of a fully functional museum was never really completed. A lot of this is ad hoc."
One of the main arguments for a move to Tempelhof is the simple fact that some of the museum's exhibits are already stored there. "Some years ago we rented some space at Tempelhof, helped by the federal government," Trotnow says. After they got it, they put some of the museum's larger objects there, including a historic British Hastings reconnaissance plane which is stored in a hangar at Tempelhof together with a second French plane.
And the museum may be in with a chance. "We could very easily imagine the museum moving (to Tempelhof)," Torsten Wöhlert, a spokesman for the Berlin government, told the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel.
However, the Berlin branch of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) -- who argued in favor of keeping the airport open -- are against the idea. "We want to use Tempelhof to commemorate the airlift, not the allies," Michael Braun, the Berlin CDU's spokesman for cultural issues, told Tagesspiegel.
And there are plenty of other ideas floating around for how to use Tempelhof, now that the bid to keep it operating as an airport has failed. Some in the city-state's government want to see the 400-hectare (990-acre) site turned into a "center for creative industries," complete with a park and 5,000 new apartments, while Berlin's Babelsberg film studio would like to use the airport as a movie location. Meanwhile Berlin's Mayor Klaus Wowereit, who opposed the initiative to keep the airport open, would like to have a competition for the best suggestions.
One thing is certain: Even after the failed referendum, Tempelhof is still going to be the center of discussion for months to come -- especially as June 24 sees the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift.