Tempelhofer Feld

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The Tempelhof Field is since 2008 the official name of today used as a park and recreation area site of the former airport Tempelhof ; it is closely linked to German military and aviation history as well as German football history. The Tempelhofer Feld now comprises the undeveloped area between the Volkspark Hasenheide and the Ringbahn . It belongs to the Tempelhofer Oberland on the Teltow plateau south of Berlin's core city. As a military training area and parade ground for the Berlin garrison, the original Tempelhofer Feld also included adjacent, now built-up areas.

Aerial view of the Tempelhofer Feld, 2017

From farmland to the parade ground and barracks of the Prussian army

Excerpt from the supplement to the address book for Berlin and its suburbs, 1907; also highlighted the parade poplar
The historic poplar on the Tempelhof field, it has stood since the time of the Soldier King and Frederick the Great . Here the 3rd Guards Regiment passes her on foot .

The field between the places Schöneberg and Tempelhof , then also called Großer Feld , was used as arable land by Schöneberg farmers up to the 18th century . From 1722 under Friedrich Wilhelm I it was also used as a military parade and parade ground and as a maneuvering area for the Prussian army . On August 2, 1881, the Hawaiian King Kalākaua was a guest in a parade. The function as a parade ground was maintained until the spring of 1914. The imperial parade poplar , on which Wilhelm II accepted the parade , was particularly characteristic . In 1828 the military bought the area. The western part was leased in 1830 to the Association for Horse Breeding and Equestrian Sports , which had a racecourse built, which was very popular with Berliners. In 1841 it had to give way to the Anhalt Railway . After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871, barracks and a loading station were built to the west of the railway line for the newly established 1st Prussian Railway Regiment, which also received a training area here. Parallel to the Berlin-Dresden railway of Berlin-Dresden railway company one was until 1875 Military Railway to Zossen built, later to Jüterbog has been extended. Extensive barracks were soon built east of the railway for the railway brigade, which was expanded by the 2nd regiment in 1890 and the 3rd regiment in 1893. As early as 1885, the airship department established a year earlier was housed here. The service buildings of the Landwehr Inspection were added from 1895–1898.

Sports history

The Schlangenpfuhl swimming lake was located on the undeveloped area of ​​the Tempelhofer Feld. In addition, the Berliners used the field for recreation , picnics and sports. The first Berlin football club, BFC Frankfurt 1885 , played its home games here, as did the German football champions from 1905 , Union 92 Berlin . The oldest still existing football club in Germany, the BFC Germania 1888 , played its first games on the Tempelhofer Feld. Initially, there were no fixed sports facilities, instead playing fields were marked as desired on the large open spaces. 32 playing fields are known for 1912, which were distributed by lot during the summer break. In 1924, a sports field was built on the east side of Tempelhofer Damm, which was used by BFC Preussen . It offered space for up to 40,000 spectators and was one of the most important football venues in Berlin at the time. On the facility called Preussen-Stadion or Preussen-Platz , several final round matches for the German soccer championship took place, including the semifinal match between Fortuna Düsseldorf and Eintracht Frankfurt in May 1933 . The sports facility was demolished in 1936 for the construction of the new central airport.

On the eastern edge of the Tempelhofer Feld, a large sports park with numerous sports fields was built in 1930. A large part of this sports park later had to give way to the expansion of the central airport. The remaining facilities today form the Werner-Seelenbinder-Sportpark .

Since 2015, a run of the FIA Formula E championship , an official world championship run with electrically powered vehicles and tens of thousands of spectators, has started annually on a temporary race track on the apron of the old airport building .

Aviation history

Aviation history was made on Tempelhofer Feld as early as the 1880s. The balloon test detachment , which was relocated here from the old Ostbahnhof , officially called the aeronautical division from May 1886 , let its balloon Barbara rise here from 1885 . In 1886 Hugo vom Hagen took the oldest known German aerial photographs from his basket . When the German Association for the Promotion of Airship Travel carried out its so-called Berlin scientific aviation , initiated by meteorologist Richard Assmann , from 1888 to 1899 , these balloon rides mostly started either on the premises of the airship department or next to the Schöneberg English gas works on the northwestern edge of the Tempelhofer Feld.

Ballon Preussen before the ascent on July 31, 1901

In the 1890s, the Tempelhofer Feld was the place where inventors demonstrated their flying objects to the Prussian military in order to receive financial support. In 1897 two of these screenings ended tragically. Friedrich Hermann Wölfert , whose airship had already covered a distance of ten kilometers from Cannstatt to Aldingen in 1888 , was the first to use a petrol engine for propulsion. On June 12, 1897, he demonstrated his airship Germany over the Tempelhofer Feld. However, the hot engine ignited the hydrogen used as the lifting gas . The airship on fire crashed. Wölfert and his assistant Robert Knabe died. A few months later, on November 3, 1897, the world's first flight of a rigid airship took place on Tempelhofer Feld . The all-metal airship made of aluminum goes back to the inventor David Schwarz . The airship turned out to be easily steerable and rose to a height of over 400 meters. However, due to drive damage, it was unable to maneuver and broke during the emergency landing.

A few months before the airship department moved to Jungfernheide , the Tempelhofer Feld wrote aviation history again. The Tegel aeronautical observatory came into possession of the Preussen balloon as a gift , which was one of the largest of its time with a capacity of 8,400 m³ of gas. To check their measuring instruments, the meteorologists Arthur Berson and Reinhard Süring wanted to go as high as possible. With the support of the airship department - 96 soldiers alone held the balloon on 48 ropes - the Prussian took off on July 31, 1901 shortly before 11 a.m. On the dramatic journey, which temporarily fainted both aeronauts, they reached a height of 10.8 kilometers in the open basket. This world record lasted for 30 years. From a scientific point of view, the ascent was significant in the discovery of the stratosphere in 1902.

Advertisement by the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger for the flight tests with the Voisin flying machine from January 28, 1909

The first powered flight on Tempelhofer Feld took place in 1909. On January 28, the Frenchman Armand Zipfel (1883–1954) started his public demonstrations here. At the invitation of the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger , he flew with his Voisin biplane until mid-February 1909 with great public interest . With the LZ 6 , on the occasion of its Kaiserfahrt on August 29, 1909, a zeppelin landed for the first time in Berlin on Tempelhofer Feld. A few days later, from September 4 to 20, 1909, Orville Wright set new records in the field during demonstration flights; including a world record in altitude of 172 meters and a passenger flight of 1:35 hours. On September 27, 1909, Hubert Latham (1883–1912) carried out the first cross-country flight over a town from Tempelhofer Feld via Rixdorf and Britz to the Johannisthal airfield .

Development after 1910

On August 31, 1910, the Tempelhof community bought the site from the military for 72 million marks and released the part to the west of Tempelhofer Damm for building. To finance the project, Tempelhofer Feld Aktiengesellschaft , a group of investors from Deutsche Bank and the building contractor Georg Haberland, was set up . According to a design by Hermann Jansen and Bruno Möhring , a dense five-storey building was to be created. According to these plans, only 60 houses were built by 1914, mainly on today's Airlift Square . Then the First World War stopped the project. After 1920, Fritz Bräuning implemented a new plan. A high perimeter block development remained . In the interior of this area, also known as the garden city of Neu-Tempelhof , a loosened up settlement with semi-detached and terraced houses and lots of greenery arose . With the residential development, the church on Tempelhofer Feld ( round church ), the St. Joseph Hospital and a new building for the Askanische Gymnasium , which had previously been located in Kreuzberg , were built. In 1936 the streets were renamed after famous pilots of the First World War such as Oswald Boelcke , Manfred von Richthofen and Werner Voss .

As early as 1896 , a military detention center was built on Prinz-August-von-Württemberg-Strasse, today's Columbiadamm . It was used as a police prison from 1918 until the late 1920s. From 1933 there was first a prison camp of the SS and the Gestapo and from 1934 to 1936 a regular concentration camp , the Columbia concentration camp .

Berlin-Tempelhof Airport

Aerial photo of the Tempelhofer Feld, May 1, 1933
American C-47 transport aircraft at Tempelhof Airport, 1948

The history of Tempelhof Airport began in 1922, when a piece of land was leveled on the northern edge of the Tempelhofer Feld at the instigation of the city planning officer Leonhard Adler and at the expense of the Junkers and Aero Lloyd companies . As early as 1923, a total of 100 take-offs and landings with 150 passengers and 1300 kg of cargo were carried out. On May 19, 1924, the Berliner Flughafen-Gesellschaft mbH was founded to continue expanding the airport. The airport was completed in two construction phases by 1928, but even then it turned out to be too small. In 1934 an extension was planned by the architect Ernst Sagebiel . The new airport building was built between 1936 and 1941.

From 1940 at the latest, the airport building was used exclusively by the arms industry, among other things for the assembly and maintenance of dive fighter aircraft of the type Ju 87 . Thousands of forced laborers of both sexes from all over Europe were deported here as a result. Their camps and accommodations were all over the field.

After the end of the Second World War , flight operations were resumed in August 1945. The airport gained special importance during the Berlin blockade from 1948 to 1949. The supply planes sometimes landed every 90 seconds. In 1970, after the construction of Tegel Airport , the airport was initially closed to civil air traffic, but reopened in 1985. Due to the construction of the major Berlin Brandenburg International (BBI) airport , all flight operations were finally suspended in 2008.

Dispute about the continued use of the site

The CDU and FDP initiated a referendum against the suspension of flight operations. The referendum ultimately failed in the referendum on April 27, 2008 due to the required approval quorum of at least 25 percent.

Several thousand activists who had come together in the Squat Tempelhof alliance tried to occupy the site on June 20, 2009 in protest against the plans for re-use . In addition to tenant alliances, the Greens also called for this . The demonstrators criticized the fact that the area was not opened to the public and feared, in addition to increasing privatization and commercialization, an accelerated gentrification process . However, the occupation was prevented by the police, who were on duty with around 1,500 officers. 102 demonstrators were arrested.

Since 2008: Tempelhofer Feld

Garden city of Neu-Tempelhof and the former Tempelhof Airport on Tempelhofer Feld, view from the south, 2008

Preparation and description

The former area, briefly called Tempelhofer Freiheit and Tempelhofer Park after the airport was closed, is now officially known as Tempelhofer Feld . It is a 355-  hectare recreational area in the Berlin districts of Neukölln and Tempelhof and is located on the plain previously known as Tempelhofer Feld on the Teltow plateau . This leisure area is thus the largest inner-city open space in the world, at the same time Berlin's largest city park and part of the project that includes the buildings and the apron of the former airport.

This park is accessible from sunrise to sunset and can be entered via ten entrances. Six of them are at the eastern end of the runways and are on Neuköllner Oderstrasse, and one each at Tempelhof station , at the level of the Paradestrasse subway station on Tempelhofer Damm and at Columbiadamm at the level of the Islamic cemetery with the Şehitlik mosque and the Golßener Strasse .

Grün Berlin GmbH has been commissioned by the Senate Administration to operate the park .

Opening of the Tempelhof Park in May 2010

opening

The park opened on May 8, 2010. On the first weekend it was frequented by around 235,000 visitors. Because of a demonstration against its regular closure after sunset and against the sale of land on the site, the entrances on Oderstrasse and Columbiadamm were temporarily closed by the security service.

Pioneering projects

Tempelhof Projekt GmbH called for the Tempelhof field to be used through various initiatives. In the first phase of the process, 138 projects applied, of which 19 were selected in September 2010 as “space pioneers”. The spatial pioneers have access to a total of eight hectares at three locations (Pionierfeld Oderstrasse: Neukölln neighborhoods , Pionierfeld Columbiadamm : Combined sport and cultural use , Pionierfeld Tempelhofer Damm : Knowledge creates culture ) (as of September 2010). In September 2015 there were still 17 pioneering projects , including A. the Allmende-Kontor (Pionierfeld Oderstraße, community garden), nuture Mini Art Golf (Pionierfeld Columbiadamm, 18 artists create interactive works of art as mini golf courses ) and the district garden Schillerkiez (Pionierfeld Oderstraße). These initiatives offer a broad spectrum for involving the population with art, sports and nature experiences.

Referendum and referendum

In September 2011, in the Schillerkiez to the east of the park area, a citizens' initiative was founded under the title 100% Tempelhofer Feld with the aim of overturning the Senate's plans for subsequent use by means of a referendum and preventing building on the site. After the initiative was presented, the open space was to be completely preserved for the public and not to be provided with new buildings for the state library, residential and commercial properties, or to be associated with the 2017 International Garden Exhibition .

Subsequently, there was a collection of signatures that led to the referendum, which took place on May 25, 2014 and was successful with a clear majority.

Planning (2011-2014)

Tempelhofer Park (former Northern Railway)

The official planning for Tempelhofer Park is the responsibility of the Berlin Senate . There are also private initiatives that also want to realize their plans on the airfield, but are not involved in the planning process by the Senate. This leads to planning conflicts. An independent mediating institution that deals with the mediation between these two interest groups (as for example with the development of Central Park in New York ) does not yet exist.

The plan was to host the 2017 International Horticultural Exhibition on the site by summer 2012 . On part of the Tempelhofer Park - on Columbiadamm, on Oderstrasse and on Tempelhofer Damm - new residential quarters were to be built according to the plans of the Senate. An innovation park was planned in the south of the site. For better accessibility, a new S-Bahn station should open up the site from the south. A new pedestrian bridge over the city ​​motorway and the S-Bahn route was also planned.

The private initiatives for the development of the Tempelhof Park are so far without any recognizable structure. The press reports irregularly on selected plans. On August 26, 2010, for example, the Berlin daily newspapers reported on the concept study by two Berliners to flood the former airfield and create a swimming and recreational lake on the park area. On April 15, 2011 the press reported that from 2013 the Tempelhof Park was to be converted into a green landscape with a lake, lots and climbing rocks.

By August 2014, a total of 9.8 million euros had been spent on planning services for the Tempelhofer Feld. 2.6 million euros flowed into the planning for the park landscape alone, 2.5 million euros for the new building of the state library and 1.9 million euros for the new residential building. The citizen participation cost 475,000 euros.

Further plans (from 2015)

In view of the influx of migrants to Berlin as part of the refugee crisis in Germany in 2015/2016 , the Berlin Senate under the Governing Mayor Michael Müller developed plans in November 2015 for the temporary development of Tempelhofer Feld with accommodation for the migrants. According to the Senate, it is limited to three years of use until December 31, 2019. Opponents of this project, including the 100% Tempelhofer Feld initiative , spoke of a “frontal attack on democracy”. At a citizens' meeting on January 21, 2016 in the former departure hall of the airport with around 1000 participants, the politicians responsible were criticized, in some cases violently.

On January 28, 2016, the Berlin House of Representatives voted with votes from the SPD and CDU for partial development of the Tempelhofer Feld. The Greens , the Left and the Pirate Party voted against the bill. State Secretary for the Environment Christian Gaebler (SPD) emphasized that the building ban would "not be lifted" and that building would only be limited to three years. Other MPs were less clear. The SPD MP Daniel Buchholz said that the Tempelhof law was fundamentally "changeable in one direction or the other at any time".

In 2018, the plans for moderate peripheral development with residential houses revived. The Senate sees this as an opportunity to do something close to the city center against the growing housing shortage in the city. The governing mayor put the new initiative as follows: “Tempelhof is a huge area that cannot be given up for urban development. [...] In the next election campaign or the next legislature , the topic will definitely play a role ”. But the negative opinions have not changed so far (as of October 2018), above all reference is made to the law that was passed as a result of the referendum.

literature

Web links

Commons : Tempelhofer Feld  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "This morning various regiments will be presented to the guest on the Tempelhof field." In: Berliner Rechts-Zeitung , August 2, 1881, p. 3 "The King reviewed a large body of infantry the next day [...]". In: William N. Armstrong: Around the world with a king. The Story of the Circumnavigation of His Majesty King David Kalakaua . London / New York 2000, ISBN 0-7103-0291-6 , p. 254; Text archive - Internet Archive
  2. ↑ Christian Wolter: lawn of passion . P. 14.
  3. ↑ Christian Wolter: lawn of passion . P. 18.
  4. ^ A b Christian Wolter: lawn of passion . P. 145.
  5. ↑ Location of the Preussen Stadium (1932) , accessed on August 28, 2018
  6. ↑ Location of the sports fields on Oderstrasse (1932) , accessed on August 28, 2018.
  7. ↑ Timo Pape: Formula E: New track layout for Berlin published, tickets available. Retrieved May 27, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Markus Becker: Berlin from above. The first aerial photos of Germany . From: Spiegel Online , April 26, 2006, accessed May 7, 2010.
  9. ^ The Voisin Airplane in Berlin . In: Flight . tape 6 . Flight, London 1909, p. 78 ( PDF [accessed March 12, 2015]).
  10. ↑ Joachim Wachtel: The Aviatiker . Mosaik Verlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-570-00837-1 . , P. 74 ff.
  11. ↑ Günter Schmitt: When the oldtimers flew - The history of the Johannisthal airfield . Transpress, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-344-00129-9 . , P. 20 ff.
  12. ↑ Tempelhofer Feld AG shares from 1911 at Historische-Wertpapiere.de , accessed on June 3, 2014
  13. ↑ Mechthild Küpper: Tempelhof Airport: That's it. That's it? In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed April 12, 2020]).
  14. ↑ Svenja Bergt: How to Occupy an Airport . In: The daily newspaper from June 20, 2009.
  15. ↑ Greens support peaceful occupation of Tempelhof . In: Der Tagesspiegel , June 15, 2009.
  16. ↑ "Squat Tempelhof" expects 10,000 squatters . In: Der Tagesspiegel , June 19, 2009.
  17. Jump up ↑ Airport occupation fails - riots . ( Memento from July 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 21, 2009.
  18. ↑ Tanja Buntrock: Tempelhof occupation: police get help. Seven hundred from the federal territory are supposed to support Berlin officials at the fence. The left-wing alliance "Squat Tempelhof" had called for the mass occupation of the airport as part of the "Action Weeks". In: Der Tagesspiegel . June 20, 2009, accessed December 19, 2010 .
  19. ↑ Unfolding on the zeit.de tarmac on September 10, 2012
  20. ↑ Opening times at gruen-berlin.de
  21. ↑ Balance of the opening of the Tempelhofer Park: Senator is very satisfied . At: berlin.de
  22. ↑ Trouble on the approach . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , accessed on May 14, 2010
  23. ↑ Space pioneers develop the Tempelhofer Freiheit . Press release from the Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment, Berlin, September 30, 2010, accessed on October 2, 2015.
  24. ↑ An overview of the pioneering projects ( Memento from October 1, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ) Website of the Tempelhof Projekt GmbH
  25. ↑ Referendum against Tempelhof development . ( Memento from November 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) taz.de , October 19, 2011.
  26. ↑ berlin.de on IGA 2017
  27. ^ Senate plans new S-Bahn station in Tempelhof . In: Berliner Morgenpost , March 16, 2010, accessed on May 14, 2010.
  28. ↑ Katrin Schoelkopf: This is how Tempelhof Airport should become a lake . In: Berliner Morgenpost , August 27, 2010, accessed on May 28, 2010.
  29. ^ R. Gorny: A park for allotment gardeners and climbers. ( Memento from April 20, 2011 in the web archive archive.today ) In: Berliner Kurier , April 15, 2011.
  30. ↑ Living in unused cemetery areas. In: Berliner Zeitung , August 11, 2014.
  31. ↑ Thomas Loy: Refugees move to Tempelhofer Feld. In: Der Tagesspiegel . November 24, 2015, accessed January 22, 2016 .
  32. ↑ Senate approves temporary development on Tempelhofer Feld. rbb aktuell, November 24, 2015, accessed on January 22, 2016 .
  33. ↑ Thorsten Gabriel: Heated debate about accommodation on the Tempelhofer Feld - "No place where refugees should live long". rbb online, January 22, 2016, accessed on January 22, 2016 .
  34. ↑ Clear the way for refugee quarters on Tempelhofer Feld. rbb aktuell, accessed on January 28, 2016 .
  35. ↑ Michael Müller's plans for peripheral development meet with resistance , in: Berliner Zeitung , April 2018, accessed on October 20, 2018.
  36. ^ Gudrun Mallwitz: Tempelhofer Feld - remain open or cultivate . In: Berliner Morgenpost , September 20, 2018, accessed on October 20, 2018.

Coordinates: 52 ° 28 ′ 24 ″  N , 13 ° 24 ′ 5 ″  E