Rhein-Main Air Base
The Rhein-Main Air Base was a base of the US Air Force (USAF) in Germany from 1945 to 2005 . It was located immediately south of Frankfurt am Main Airport and shared the runways with it . Up to 10,000 soldiers were stationed at the air base during the Cold War . In contrast to other mixed-use airports, the Rhein-Main Air Base had its own IATA code (FRF) and ICAO code (EDAF).
On September 30, 2005 the operations of the USAF ended on the base, on December 31, 2005 the base was finally closed. Since then, the area has been available to Frankfurt Airport as an expansion area.
history
Beginnings
In April 1945, the former Rhein-Main airport and airship port was confiscated by the US armed forces and converted into an air base for the United States Army Air Forces ( USAAF ) - the USAF that later emerged from it. For the Berlin Airlift 1948/1949 the air base (along with other air force bases of the three Western Allies in Germany) was the main supply base, which is still reminiscent of the airlift monument on the edge of the base. The sculpture is a duplicate of the airlift memorial at Berlin-Tempelhof Airport . Another duplicate is at the entrance to the village of Wietzenbruch near Celle .
From July 9-10, 1956, reconnaissance flights to what was then the Soviet Union took off from the air base during the Cold War period . The US foreign intelligence service CIA led the observation missions carried out by a U-2 aircraft to missile and radar bases in Lithuania, Belarus and the Crimea.
Until 1959, the Rhein-Main Air Base was the most important European location for air transport for the US Air Force; In the same year it withdrew from the northern part of the area in order to enable the purely civilian operation of Frankfurt Airport. Since the entry and exit of all US soldiers stationed in Europe was also processed via the base, it was given the nickname Gateway to Europe .
The base was assigned to the Military Airlift Command (now Air Mobility Command ) on July 1, 1975 and returned to the USAFE on April 1, 1992.
Between 1975 and 1992, the RMAB was also home to the 435th SPS / AMS and the 469th Security Police Squadron / RMAB. This was then renamed the 469th ABG Security Forces after 1992 and relocated to Ramstein with the closure of the RMAB .
From 1986 , the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) was also housed here as classified information, but with the consent of the then head of the Chancellery, Wolfgang Schäuble . It was an anti-terrorist unit that had its own machine for its operations. She completed more than 30 missions, for example after the al-Qaida attacks in 1998 in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and in 2000 on the warship Cole in Aden.
On May 30, 1989, US President George HW Bush visited the air base during a visit to Germany.
During the Second Gulf War from 1990 to 1991, the Rhein-Main Air Base served as a European hub for military air transport from the USA to the Gulf region and back. When NATO carried out air strikes against Serbia as part of the Kosovo war in the spring of 1999 , tanker planes took off from here to supply the NATO jets with fuel in the air (see photo on the right).
On May 5, 1999, US President Bill Clinton visited the Air Base during a visit to Germany.
Aviation accident
On May 22, 1983, an airplane accident occurred at the air force base during an air show. An F-104 Starfighter of the Canadian Air Force, stationed in Rheinmünster-Söllingen in Baden - called CFBE Baden-Soellingen - crashed on Bundesstrasse 44 near the Frankfurt Waldstadion . Six people were killed.
Explosives attack
In the morning of August 8, 1985, an RAF explosive device exploded on the Rhein-Main Air Base (RMAB) . It was stowed in a car in a US base parking lot. Two people died and eleven were injured, some seriously. The property damage amounted to around 500,000 euros. The 20-year-old US soldier Edward Pimental was previously shot in Wiesbaden in order to get his identification card (US-Mil-ID) with which the car could be driven onto the site without hindrance.
reduction
On December 20, 1993, the US Air Force reached an agreement with the airport company Flughafen Frankfurt / Main AG to reduce the size of the base and to gradually return parts of it. By April 1995 the staff was reduced by around two thirds to 3,000 people (including relatives) and some units were relocated to Ramstein Air Base near Kaiserslautern . Since then, no aircraft have been permanently stationed in Frankfurt. In 1999, the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany, the federal states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate and Fraport AG signed a contract to return the site to the Federal Republic and to convert it into a civilian airfield. In June 2005 the US Air Force relocated its hub for supplying the armed forces in Iraq from Rhine-Main to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.
Closure at the end of 2005
The closure of the Rhein-Main Air Base and the return of the remaining 153 hectares to the Federal Republic of Germany by the end of December 2005 was contractually agreed on December 23, 1999. On December 30, 2005, the symbolic handover of the keys by US Air Force General Mike Snodgrass to the airport operator Fraport AG took place.
Rhine-Main Transition Program
Since the US Air Force wants to maintain its air transport capacities in Germany, two thirds of them were relocated from Frankfurt to Ramstein Air Base and one third to Spangdahlem Air Base as part of the Rhein-Main Transition Program from October 1, 2005 .
Both bases have been expanded for this purpose. The measures were financed by Fraport, the Federal Republic of Germany and the federal states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate . At the end of 2007, in response to a request from the Greens in the state parliament, the Hessian state government announced that the relocation of the air base would cost around 372 million euros by the time the last of 37 construction projects were completed. Fraport contributes 130, NATO 80, the federal government 63, the city of Frankfurt 46, the state of Hesse 36 and the state of Rhineland-Palatinate 17 million euros.
A C-17 Globemaster III carried out the last air transport mission from the base on September 28, 2005. The last military charter flight took place two days later. The official farewell ceremony took place on October 10th, at which a C-17 was also christened the Spirit of Rhein-Main .
In the last months of 2005 the US Air Force prepared the Rhein-Main Air Base for the final handover.
Future of the former air base
Construction work on the new Terminal 3 began in 2015 on the space that has now been vacated . A new terminal building for up to 25 million passengers a year is to be built here by 2023. The cornerstone ceremony for the building construction of the new Terminal 3 took place on April 29, 2019.
Suspected contaminated sites
As it became known in 2019, 600,000 cubic meters of excavated material from the construction site of Terminal 3 was contaminated with poly- and perfluorinated chemicals. It is very likely that the chemicals got into the ground through fire-fighting foam, which the American Air Force mainly used for training purposes.
literature
- Harry R. Fletcher: Air Force Bases. Volume II: Air Bases Outside the United States of America. Washington, DC, 1993, pp. 147-153.
- John Provan : The History of Rhein-Main Air Base Kindle ebook, Halle 2011, ISBN 978-0-945794-13-4 . (English tables on units, missions, VIP ...)
Web links
- History of the US Rhein Main Air Base with photo series at gg-online.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Klaus Wiegrefe: Rhein-Main Air Base: USA secret troops stationed in Frankfurt. In: Spiegel Online . February 4, 2017. Retrieved June 9, 2018 .
- ↑ https://2001-2009.state.gov/s/ct/about/c16664.htm
- ↑ Jutta Rippegather: Space for a further 21 million passengers. In: fr.de . April 29, 2019, accessed November 27, 2019 .
- ↑ Jochen Remmert: Fraport: Floor storage for contaminated excavation may be unnecessary. In: faz.net . February 15, 2020, accessed February 25, 2020 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 2 ′ 7 ″ N , 8 ° 35 ′ 7 ″ E