Berlin Tempelhof Airport

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Tempelhof International Airport

Flughafen Berlin-Tempelhof
Summary
Airport typePublic
OperatorBerlin Airports
LocationBerlin, Germany
Elevation AMSL167 ft / 51 m
Coordinates52°28′23″N 13°24′14″E / 52.47306°N 13.40389°E / 52.47306; 13.40389
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
09L/27R 6,870 2,094 Paved
09R/27L 6,037 1,840 Paved
Exterior of Tempelhof Airport.
Interior of Tempelhof - almost deserted as of 2006.

Tempelhof International Airport (IATA: THF, ICAO: EDDI) a.k.a. Berlin Tempelhof (German: Flughafen Tempelhof) is an airport in Berlin, Germany, situated in the south-central borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. This airport is commonly known as Tempelhof as well.

Designated by the ministry of transportation on October 8, 1923, Tempelhof became the world's first airport with a underground railway station in 1927. While occasionally cited as the world's oldest still-operating commercial airport, Kingsford Smith International Airport in Sydney, Australia predates it by three years.

Tempelhof was one of Europe's three iconic pre-war airports - the others being London's old Croydon Airport and Paris Le Bourget.

One of the airport's most distinguishing features is its large, canopy-style roof that was able to accommodate most contemporary airliners during its heyday in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, thereby saving passngers from the elements.

Overview

Tempelhof is often called the "City Airport". Tempelhof mostly has commuter flights to other parts of Germany and neighboring countries, but has in the past received long-haul, wide-bodied airliners, such as the Boeing 747(picture) and the Lockheed C5A "Galaxy".

Tempelhof Airport has two parallel runways. Runway 9L/27R has a length of 2,094 metres (6,870 feet) and runway 9R/27L has a length of 1,840 m (6,037 ft). Both runways are paved with asphalt. The taxiway is in the shape of a circle around these two runways, with a single terminal on the north side of the airport.

In 2007, it served less than 350,000 passengers; however, largely due to the costs and insufficient profitable use of the considerable real-estate, the airport is not profitable. The airport is scheduled for closure in October 2008, and possible other uses for it are being discussed. The airport buildings will be preserved. Currently, an initiative for a non-binding referendum on the level of the Land (state of) Berlin against the close-down has reached its second stage, where voters may lodge supportive signatures at district townhalls.

Airlines and destinations

The following regular airlines fly to Tempelhof International Airport:

The following Taxiflights fly to THF:

History

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 neighboring 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 commercial 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

World War II

Weserwerke started war production in a new building for assembling Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bombers and later Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter planes in Tempelhof's underground tunnels. Aircraft engines were trucked to Tempelhof and joined to finished airframes. Germany did not use Tempelhof as a military airfield during World War II, except for occasional emergency landings by fighter aircraft.

Soviet forces took Tempelhof in the Battle of Berlin on 24 April 1945 in the closing days of the war in Europe following a fierce battle with Luftwaffe troops. Tempelhof's German commander, Colonel Rudolf Boettger, refused to carry out orders to blow up the base, choosing instead to kill himself.

In accordance with the Yalta agreements, Zentralflughafen Tempelhof-Berlin was turned over to the United States Army 2nd Armored Division on 2 July 1945 by the Soviet Union as part of the American occupation zone of Berlin. This agreement was later formalized by the August 1945 Potsdam Agreement, which formally divided Berlin into four occupation zones.

The 852nd Engineer Aviation Battalion arrived at Tempelhof (Code Number R-95) on 10 July 1945 and made the original repairs.

7350th Air Base Group

United States Army Air Force units also took over the airfield, and the 862nd Engineer Aviation Battalion built a concrete runway where there had previously only been sod.

With the formation of the United States Air Force in 1947, Tempelhof became a USAF base. The United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) renamed the facility Tempelhof Air Base. Until the Allied Forces' departure in 1993, Tempelhof was divided into a USAF military facility and a separate area dedicated to civil air operations until 1975. The base was also the home of elements of the U.S. Army's Berlin Command during specific periods of crisis during the Cold War.

During its use as a civil airport, Tempelhof was an important component of West Berlin's Cold War status. During that period, many Berliners could travel to and from the City only by air to avoid East German police who were patrolling Soviet Zone autobahns.

Major USAFE units at Tempelhof AB were:

  • 473rd Air Services Group, July 2 1945 - 1946
  • 788th Air Base Unit 1946 - 1948
  • 7350th Air Base Group (1948 - 1993)
  • 1946th AACS Squadron (1948 - 1992)

Note: Throughout its service in Berlin the 7350th Air Base Group was renamed several times:

  • 7350th Air Base Group (1948-1954)
  • 7350th Air Base Squadron (1954-1958)
  • 7350th Air Support Squadron (1958-1964)
  • 7350th Support Group (1964-1973)
  • 7350th Air Base Group (1973-1993)

In the immediate postwar period, Tempelhof hosted passengers arriving and departing the Potsdam Conference, and served as Berlin center for the European Air Transport Service (EATS) during the early postwar years. It also supported the mission of the Office of the High Commissioner of Germany (HICOG), and air-sea rescue operations center when USAFE assumed the direct responsibilities of EATS on 20 December 1947, and Tempelhof Air Base being a detached installation of Wiesbaden AB (HQ USAFE).

In 1971 one of the pilots during the Berlin Airlift, and the original Candy Bomber, Gail Halvorsen, returned to Berlin as the commander of Tempelhof airbase.

Berlin Airlift

Main article: Berlin Blockade
Berlin Airlift Monument in Berlin-Tempelhof, displaying the names of the 39 British and 31 American pilots who lost their lives during the operation.

On 20 June 1948 Soviet authorities, claiming technical difficulties, halted all traffic by land and by water into or out of the western-controlled section of Berlin. The only remaining access routes into the city were three 20-mile-wide air corridors across the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany. Faced with the choice of abandoning the city or attempting to supply its inhabitants with the necessities of life by air, the Western Powers chose the latter course and for the next 11 months sustained the city's 2.5 million residents in one of the greatest feats in aviation history.

"Operation Vittles," as the airlift was unofficially named, began on 26 June when USAF Douglas C-47 Skytrains carried 80 tons of food into Tempelhof, far less than the estimated 4,500 tons of food, coal and other material needed daily to maintain a minimum level of existence. But this force was soon augmented by United States Navy and Royal Air Force cargo aircraft. On 15 October 1948, to promote increased safety and cooperation between the separate U.S. and British airlift efforts, the Allies created a unified command -- the Combined Airlift Task Force under Maj. Gen. William H. Tunner, USAF, was established at Tempelhof. To facilitate the command and control, as well as the unloading of aircraft, the USAF 53rd Troop Carrier Squadron was temporary assigned to Tempelhof.

In addition to the airlift operations, American engineers constructed a new 6,000-ft runway at Tempelhof between July and September 1948 and another between September and October 1948 to accommodate the expanding requirements of the airlift. The last airlift transport touched down at Tempelhof on 30 September 1949.

Cold War

Main article: West Berlin

As the Cold War intensified in the late 1950s and 1960s, access problems to West Berlin, both land and air, continued to cause tension. USAF aircraft were harassed as they flew in and out of the city. Throughout the Cold War years, Templehof was the main terminal for American, British and French military transport aircraft accessing West Berlin.

USAFE renamed the facility Tempelhof Central Airport on 28 February 1958, and on 15 November 1959 administration of Tempelhof was transferred to Ramstein AB.

In addition to its military use, the airport was used by commercial airliners until 1 September 1975, when all civil air traffic was transferred to Berlin Tegel Airport. Tempelhof was then used solely as a military airport until 1985 when Tempelhof Airways, a US-registered commuter airline, resumed commercial operations with a pair of Nord 262 commuter turboprops to secondary and tertiary destinations in West Germany not served by any scheduled carrier from Tegel at that time.[1]

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the presence of American forces in Berlin ended. The USAF 7350th Air Base Group at Tempelhof was deactivated in June 1993. In July 1994, with President Clinton in attendance, the British, French, and American air and land forces in Berlin were deactivated in a ceremony on the Four Ring Parade field at Tempelhof in accordance with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany. The Western Allies returned a united city of Berlin to the unified German government.

The U.S. Army closed its Berlin Army Aviation Detachment at TCA in August 1994, ending a 49-year American military presence in Berlin.

Postwar Commercial Use

American Overseas Airlines (AOA), at the time the overseas division of American Airlines, inaugurated the first commercial air link serving Tempelhof after the war with a flight from New York via Frankfurt on 18 May 1946.[2] In 1950 Pan Am acquired AOA from American Airlines and established a presence at Tempelhof.[3][2] In addition to continuing AOA's Berlin-Frankfurt-New York service, Pan Am commenced regular, year-round scheduled services to most major West German cities from Tempelhof with Douglas DC-4s as these were widely available at the time due to the large number of war-surplus C-54 "Skymasters" on the second-hand aircraft market.[4]

1950 was also the year BEA and Air France joined Pan Am at Tempelhof.[4][5][6] The former transferred its operations from Gatow and the latter resumed operations to Tempelhof following their cessation during the war years.[4][5][6] This was furthermore the year Western Allies of World War II restrictions making commercial airline services from/to West Berlin accessible to Allied military personnel and their dependants only were lifted.[2] This decision gave a major boost to West Berlin's fledgeling post-war scheduled air services, all of which were concentrated at Tempelhof at that time.[2]

From 1951 onwards, several of the new, wholly privately owned Independent UK airlines as well as US supplemental carriers began flying from the UK, th US and West Germany as well. These airlines initially carried members of the UK and US armed forces stationed in Berlin and their dependants as well as essential raw materials, finished goods manufactured in West Berlin and refugees from East Germany and Eastern Europe, who were still able to freely enter the city prior to the construction of the infamous Berlin Wall, on their flights.[7]

However, with the opening of the newly built terminal at Berlin-Tegel Airport on 1 September 1975, Pan Am and British Airways moved commercial aircraft operations there and Tempelhof became exclusively used by the US Military until 1987.[1]

The ending of the Cold War and German Reunification opened Tempelhof for non-allied air traffic on 3 October 1990. U.S. President Bill Clinton christened a new Boeing C17A Globemaster III transport plane, Serial 96-0006 as the "Spirit of Berlin" at Tempelhof on 14 May 1998.

Today commercial use is mostly in the form of small commuter aircraft flying regionally. Plans are in place to shut down Tempelhof and Tegel, and have Schoenefeld become the sole commercial airport for Berlin.

Initiative for a referendum against closing-down

Currently, an initiative for a non-binding referendum on the level of the Land (state of) Berlin against the close-down is running and has completed its second stage, after the initial number of signatures required had been collected. [8] According to the constitution of the state of Berlin, the number of supportive signatures which were required to be collected within four months in order to compel a referendum amounts to 7% of the population of Berlin entitled to vote, or 169,784.[9] The four months period for the collection of signatures at the Berlin district townhalls ended at 14 February 2008.[10] 203,408 signatures were lodged.[11] The referendum will be held on 29 Jun 2008 unless the Senate concede.[12]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tempelhof International Airport.

Notes

  1. ^ a b Berlin's commuter market grows, Flight International, 2 April 1988, pp. 6, 8
  2. ^ a b c d Berlin Airport Company - Airline Portrait - Pan Am, January 1975 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1975
  3. ^ Hot route in the Cold War, Friday, Jul. 03, 1964
  4. ^ a b c BEA in Berlin, Air Transport, Flight International, 10 August 1972, pp. 180/1
  5. ^ a b Berlin Airport Company - Airline Portrait - British Airways, February 1975 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1975
  6. ^ a b Berlin Airport Company - Airline Portrait - British Airways, March 1975 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1975
  7. ^ The Spirit of Dan-Air, Simons, G.M., GMS Enterprises, Peterborough, 1993, p. 11
  8. ^ Official public announcement of the call for support (German).
  9. ^ Official page of the State of Berlin: see Article 63 (1), second sentence of the Berlin constitution (German); with regard to the figures, see the official referendum schedule, at the end of the page(German).
  10. ^ Official referendum schedule, at A. 6 (German).
  11. ^ Official information on the number of signatures lodged.
  12. ^ Official referendum schedule, at B. 2 (German).

References

  • Endicott, Judy G. (1999) Active Air Force wings as of 1 October 1995; USAF active flying, space, and missile squadrons as of 1 October 1995. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. CD-ROM.
  • Fletcher, Harry R. (1989) Air Force Bases Volume II, Active Air Force Bases outside the United States of America on 17 September 1982. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0912799536
  • Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0892010924.
  • Ravenstein, Charles A. (1984). Air Force Combat Wings Lineage and Honors Histories 1947-1977. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0912799129.
  • Berlin Airport Company (Berliner Flughafen Gesellschaft [BFG]) - Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tempelhof and Berlin Tegel Airports, several issues (German language edition only), 1965-1975. West Berlin, Germany: Berlin Airport Company.
  • "Flight International". Sutton, UK: Reed Business Information. ISSN 0015-3710. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) (various backdated issues relating to commercial air transport at Berlin Tegel during the Allied period from 1950 until 1988)
  • Simons, Graham M. (1993). The Spirit of Dan-Air. Peterborough, UK: GMS Enterprises. ISBN 1-8703-8420-2.

External links


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