geology.com
Central European Travel Seminar
Tempelhof Airport
By Elizabeth Jackson
Originally Published 13 May 2013 at Central Europe and Back Again
Tempelhof Airport, centrally located in Berlin, has a unique history. During the early years of aviation, the field that was to become the airport, Orville Wright hosted air shows in the field. It wasn’t until 1923 that the “Tempelhof Field Airport” opened. In the subsequent years of the Weimar Republic construction on the airport’s main building and hangers, as well as the founding of the Berlin Airport Company and the Deutsche Lufthansa company.
Urban gardens in Tempelhofer Freiheit.
When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party consolidated power in the 1930s, Tempelhof’s original terminal was reconstructed to fit the ideal of a gateway into Hitler’s “world capital” of Germania.
Following World War II, Tempelhof was part of the American-occupied zone of West Berlin. In 1948 the Soviets shut down the Autobahn and all other means of transportation to and from Berlin from Western Germany, hoping to drive out French, American and British troops. This began the Berlin Airlift, which lasted for almost a year and supplied two-and-a-half million residents of Berlin with supplies.
During the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, Tempelhof was a hub of international activity. By the mid-1990s, however, plans were in the works to close down Tempelhof and Tegel airports and consolidate all national and international air traffic into the Berlin Brandenburg International Airport. A referendum to keep Tempelhof open failed in 2008, and the airport was closed by October of that year.
Tempelhof Terminal.
The airport took on a new life after its closing. The Tempelhofer Freiheit project aims to create urban parkland where planes once landed. The park remains an open space, but the project plans to develop the space to fit the needs of Berlin’s citizens. The terminal building will be used as an event space.
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