Tempelhof International Airport
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| Tempelhof International Airport Flughafen Berlin-Tempelhof |
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| IATA: THF - ICAO: EDDI | |||
| Summary | |||
| Airport type | Public | ||
| Operator | Berlin Airports | ||
| Serves | Berlin | ||
| Elevation AMSL | 167 ft (51 m) | ||
| Coordinates | |||
| Runways | |||
| Direction | Length | Surface | |
| ft | m | ||
| 09L/27R | 6,870 | 2,094 | Paved |
| 09R/27L | 6,037 | 1,840 | Paved |
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.
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[edit] Overview
Tempelhof is often called the "City Airport". Tempelhof mostly has commuter flights to other parts of Germany and neighboring countries, since its runway is too small to receive long-haul airliners such as the Boeing 747.
Tempelhof Airport has two parallel runways. Runway 9L/27R has a length of 2094 metres (6870 feet) and Runway 9R/27L has a length of 1840 m (6037 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 2006, it served 634,538 passengers, however the airport is not profitable. The airport is scheduled for closure in October 2008, and possible other uses for it are being discussed. Many argue that a building of such historical and architectural importance should somehow be preserved.
[edit] Airlines
The following regular airlines fly to Tempelhof International Airport:
- Brussels Airlines (Brussels)
- Cirrus Airlines (Mannheim, Saarbrucken)
- European Air Express (Munster)
- InterSky (Friedrichshafen, Graz)
- Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter (Dortmund)
The following Taxiflights fly to THF:
- AAF Aviona Air
- Air Service Berlin
- AIRSHIP Air Service
- Bizair Fluggesellschaft
- Business Air Charter
- Heli Unionair
- Jet Club Deutschland Chartermanagement
- Private Wings
- Rotorflug
- TAG Aviation
- Windrose Air
[edit] 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, 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
[edit] 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.
The Allied powers who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II divided the country west of the Oder-Neisse line into occupation zones during the Yalta Conference, with Berlin also being divided into occupation zones. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe the American forces had actually pushed far beyond the previously agreed upon occupation zone boundaries, sometimes by as much as 200 miles (320 kilometers) into the agreed Soviet zone.
The line of contact between Soviet and American forces at the end of hostilities was temporary. After about two months of holding certain areas meant to be in the Soviet zone, the American forces withdrew in July 1945. Some have speculated that this was a crucial move that helped induce the Soviets in allowing American and British forces into their predesignated areas in Berlin, which was done at roughly the same time (July 1945).
[edit] American Occupation
In accordance with the Yalta agreements, Zentralfiughafen Tempelhof-Berlin was turned over to the United States Army 2d 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.
[edit] 7350th Air Base Group
United States Army Air Force units also took over the airfield with the 862d Engineer Aviation Battalion building 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 it's use as a civil airport, Tempelhof was an important component of West Berlin's Cold War freedom. During that period, many Berliners could only travel to and from the City via air to avoid communist East German police patrolling Soviet Zone autobahns.
Major USAFE units at Tempelhof AB were:
- 473d 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.
[edit] Berlin Airlift
The first major test of the Free World's will to resist Soviet aggression came on 20 June 1948 when 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 Russian 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 53d 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.
[edit] Cold War
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. It was a dangerous place. 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 civil airline aircraft 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 3 October 1990 when, as a result of German Reunification, the airport was reopened to civil air traffic.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the necessity for 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 had achieved their goals and returned a united city of Berlin to the unified German government. With this ceremony the last vestige of World War II and the Cold War in Berlin officially ended.
The U.S. Army closed its Berlin Army Aviation Detachment at TCA in August 1994, ending a 49-year American military presence in Berlin.
[edit] Postwar Commercial Use
American Overseas Airlines started the first commercial air service after the war with a flight from New York on 18 May 1946. On 20 May 1950, U.S. forces held the first Armed Forces Day, open to the public. Boeing demonstrated its prototype 727 as the first jet transport plane in Tempelhof on 2 December 1964.
A U.S. Air Force C-5A Galaxy landed at Tempelhof on 17 September 1971, being the first wide-body aircraft to land there. 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 U.S. Military.
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 eventually shut down Tempelhof, and Tegel, and have Schoenefeld become the sole commercial airport for Berlin.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Endicott, Judy G., USAF Active Flying, Space, and Missile Squadrons as of 1 October 1995. Office of Air Force History
- Fletcher, Harry R., Air Force Bases Volume II, Active Air Force Bases outside the United States of America on 17 September 1982, Office of Air Force History, 1989
- Maurer Maurer, Air Force Combat Units Of World War II, Office of Air Force History, 1983
- Ravenstein, Charles A., Air Force Combat Wings Lineage and Honors Histories 1947-1977, Office of Air Force History, 1984
- National Museum Of The USAF Berlin Airlift Factsheet
