Giessen Airport

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The airport casting was an airfield in casting - Wieseck , Central Hesse . It was built as a commercial airport in 1925 , converted into a military airfield in 1937 and remained so until the end of the war.

Renovated reception building, airfield side (spring 2018)

Geographical location

The airport was on an area between the core city of Gießen and Rödgen . It took up an area of ​​almost 41 hectares .

Civil airport

construction

In 1924 the Reich Ministry of Transport asked the city of Gießen to set up a "scheduled courier service". This was also supported by the province of Upper Hesse and the IHK Gießen . At the end of April 1925, the finance committee of the Landtag of the People's State of Hesse provided start-up funding of RM 25,000 .

A Luftverkehrs AG Oberhessen-Lahngau (Oblag) should be founded as the sponsor for the project . On May 29, 1925, the city ​​council of Gießen decided to contribute 50,000 RM. In addition, in the same year it made a site available for the airport, “Am Stolzen Morgen”, and bore the costs of building the airport, a total of 104,000 RM. In order to be able to start operations immediately, a simple wooden structure was initially built as a reception building. The opening ceremony took place on July 5, 1925 in the presence of the aircraft manufacturer Hugo Junkers . As a result, the airport grounds turned out to be too damp. The wetness regularly caused damage to the runway . In 1926 and 1927 extensive drainage was therefore carried out with funds from the German Reich . In addition to the new station building in 1927, a hangar and additional outbuildings followed in 1929 .

business

The Oblag's first scheduled flights connected Gießen with Frankfurt am Main . The Oblag agreed with the Südwestdeutsche Luftverkehrsgesellschaft (from 1926: Lufthansa ) to integrate Giessen into their route network. Lufthansa initially operated the Giessen– Frankfurt route , and shortly afterwards the Giessen– Kassel – Hanover route in a northerly direction . In the first year of operation, 1926, the airport was served on 149 days, in 1931 on 129 days. A total of 2,252 starts took place this year. Nevertheless, due to insufficient passenger numbers, operations were discontinued in 1933 with the exception of feeder flights to Frankfurt.

Military use

air force

After the seizure of power of the National Socialists an extensive upgrade began. From 1934 onwards, the Munster Air Office and later the Air District Command IV investigated the conversion of the airport into a military airfield under strict secrecy . On March 31, 1936, Oblag's lease for the airport site was terminated. The last civil flights took place here in July 1936. From 1937 the facility was converted into a military airfield, in particular the runway was extended. This was preceded by the connection of the airfield to the Vogelsbergbahn (approx. 7.5 km route ). From May 1, 1939 at the latest, the airport was used by Kampfgeschwader 55 “Greif” of the Luftwaffe , which was stationed here.

US Army

The now abandoned US depot on the site of the former airport (September 2005)

After the Second World War , the US armed forces took over the facility. The headquarters of the 42nd Artillery Group was built here before 1960 .

On the oval runway, the armed forces set up the US depot in Giessen with the European headquarters of the army's own consumer goods supply chain AAFES (including the goods handling center). The military part of the US depot was closed in 2007, the last civil part of the AAFES operations in 2015. The property was returned to the city of Giessen. Unused parts of the site were used by the Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks .

Reception building

The historic airport building before the start of the renovation

Planning for a permanent reception building began as early as the year it opened, in 1925. From the initial phase, there are two designs for this, one in the backward-looking Heimat style , based on Goethe's garden house in Weimar , and one in the futuristic forms of the Bauhaus style . The Luftverkehrs AG Oberhessen-Lahngau based itself on the latter in 1927 when it erected the station building. The planning was in the hands of the Giessen municipal building authority. Construction began on March 27, 1927, and the shell was completed on June 8, 1927. The building, which opened on September 27, 1927, had cost 75,000 RM.

It has two full floors. The stair tower in the middle is striking and is the only part of the building with a rounded shape that faces outwards. On the ground floor, facing the airfield, was the dining room of the restaurant in the middle of the building. Its flat roof served as a viewing terrace. All other parts of the building have purlin roofs , which are kept so flat that they look like flat roofs. On the ground floor, next to the guest room, there were annex rooms, which were separated from the main room by large sliding doors, and the kitchen. On the first floor there were offices, guest rooms where overnight stays were possible, and the tenant apartment. In- situ concrete , artificial stone and scratch plaster were used for the facade design. The bars of the windows and the doors were originally painted a dark blue, but were lost in the history of use of the building - apart from a few remains. The distinctive lettering made of capital letters on the side facing the airfield is also lost: FLUGHAFEN GIESSEN. It was probably made of sheet brass .

The modern interior of the building has been withdrawn since the late 1920s and replaced by bourgeois, representative furnishings in the style of the time.

The use of the building by the military left its mark. There have been structural changes and wear and tear. After the last users left in 2007, it threatened to expire. The station building is a cultural monument according to the Hessian Monument Protection Act because of its artistic, urban and traffic history importance . It is considered an "outstanding monument of modernity".

According to an investigation commissioned by the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Hesse , which was available in 2013, a private investor was found in Revikon GmbH who took over the building and has been gradually renovating it since 2015. It is to accommodate Revikon offices and be available to companies in the industrial park for celebrations and receptions.

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Christian Kayser, Hanno Born: Preservation of monuments and cultural history . Departure into a new era? The reception building of the former Giessen civil airport. Ed .: State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen . 2017, p. 25 (2017/4).
  2. ^ A b Christian Kayser, Hanno Born: Preservation of monuments and cultural history . Departure into a new era? The reception building of the former Giessen civil airport. Ed .: State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen . 2017, p. 24 (2017/4).
  3. ^ A b Christian Kayser, Hanno Born: Preservation of monuments and cultural history . Departure into a new era? The reception building of the former Giessen civil airport. Ed .: State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen . 2017, p. 26 (2017/4).
  4. ↑ "Giessen Airport" becomes the prey of nature ; Giessener Allgemeine, July 3, 2011
  5. ↑ Kayser, p. 30
  6. ↑ Kayser, p. 32
  7. ↑ Kayser, p. 32f
  8. ↑ State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.): Former civil airport Gießen In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hesse
  9. ↑ Kayser, p. 34
  10. ↑ Burkhard Möller: Well over 1000 jobs are to be created . In: Gießener Allgemeine from February 1, 2017; Photo (2017).
  11. ↑ mö: Lots of traffic on Lufthansastraße . In: Gießener Allgemeine Zeitung, May 24, 2018

Coordinates: 50 ° 35 ′ 36 "  N , 8 ° 43 ′ 38"  E