Airport Berlin Tempelhof closed for ever...

[T.S.C.Plage]

The 30th October 2008 was a sad day for Berlin and aviation history in general. The Berlin City Airport Tempelhof closed it's gates for ever. The airport mostly known for the "Big Airlift" that took place shortly after WWII existed over 85 years and was closed by decision of the Berlin senate against the will of the population because it's not considered cost effective anymore. One of the main thoughts behind the decision is to force the civil aviation complete to the new "Mega-Airport" Schoenefeld that currently is under construction. Another reason of course not officially mentioned is to gather money for the empty city cash-box by selling parts of the land of the airport. God bless the airport buildings themself are landmarked and can't be teared down because they are protected by law.

At 11:55 pm on the 30th October 2008 the last two aircrafts a DC-3 of the "Air Service Berlin" and a Ju-52 from of the "Lufthansa" simultaniously took off from the both runways of the airport. Here is a link to the last radio call of the both planes...click.

On this unfortunately shaked photo you can see the DC-3 taking off (Photo: T.S.C.Plage).

Following is a compressed historical overview about the airport and it's prehistory. I tried to sort out the directly related parts but please keep in mind that much more around the airport was going on during the time of it's existence. There are still some gaps especially about the Nazi time and the military use of the airport between 1939-1945.

Pre-History:

22th July 1351 - First documented reference about Tempelhof (Tempelhoeve) as Margrave Ludwig the Iron mad peace with Berlin and Coelln in the small village. Tempelhof and Coelln (renamed to "Neukoelln") later became precincts of Berlin.

Tempelhof can be translated with temple-yard, -court or even -farm and most likely has the name from a small settlement of the Templers (Knights Templar).
This is also represented in the coat of arms of the precinct which shows a red cross on a white or silver background/shield (Illustration: T.S.C.Plage).


The "Tempelhofer Feld" (Field of Tempelhof/Tempelhof Field):

1722 - The Soldierking Friedrich Wilhelm I. holds the first "Revue" (a huge military parade) on the field. From now on the field was regularly used for parades and as a exercise area for the military to train movement and tactic in full army size.

31st May 1728 - The two most important monarchs of that time, Friedrich Wilhelm I. and August the Powerful King of Poland and Elector of Saxony accepted the biggest "Revue" of the century (10 infantry and four cavalry regiments) on the back of their horses.

The excercise plan of the Revue. The title freely translated says "Accurate plan of the field-districts Risdorff and Tempelhoff where
there 1728 10 regiments of infantry and 4 regiments of cavalry will pass in front of their Polish and Prussian Royal Majesties.

1826/1827 - The whole area was bought by the local government from the farmers who formerly owned the field(s).

16th June 1871 - On this day the troops coming home from France marched up in front of the Emperor, Bismarck, Moltke etc. in a huge parade cheered by thousands of Berlin citizens.

1873 - After the founding of the German Reich the Tempelhofer Feld becomes property of the Reich.

1882 - The "Three Emperors Parade" with Wilhelm I., Alexander II. of Russia and Franz Joseph of Austria took place.

1884 - During the time many military installations had been build around the field. One of the wide variations of units which had their barracks around there were two railroad regiments which formed a "Balloondetachment" in the year 1884 that started to experiment with ballons and aviation in general. The detachment moved to the Tegel artilley range in 1906.
As a sidenote: Tegel became the third Berlin airport besides Tempelhof and Gatow shortly after WWII had ended because of the urgent need for more capacity at the Big Airlift took place.

1890 - The Emperorsparade has been held like each year.

Emperors Parade on the Tempelhofer Feld 1890 (Photo: Archiv - Berliner Flughaefen/Berlin Airports).

12th June 1897 - The motorized airship of Dr. H. Woelfert crashs at Tempelhof.

The Woelfert airship.

29th August 1909 - The huge airship (Zeppelin) LZ III with a length of 139m payed it's first visit to Berlin. Over the Tempelhofer Feld the airship paraded in front of the Emperor Wilhelm II. and over 300.000 Berlin citizens in a height of about 100m for about half an hour as it suddenly slowed down and lowered it's bow in a gesture of respect in the direction of the Emperor (please imagine that!). The crowd could now clearly see Count Zeppelin in the cockpit and the cheering reached a top. Hats were thrown, flags were waved and thousands of "Hurras" were screamed. As answer postcards were thrown out of the cockpit windows of the airship and everybody was ripping the cards out of each others hands.

Airship LZ III over the Tempelhofer Feld.

4th September 1909 - Orville Wright flies his double decker above the Tempelhofer Feld in front of about 150.000 cheering people. He reached a speed of about 50-60 km/h, a max. height of 172m and flew a total range of about 20km.
After the deadly accident of Otto Lilienthal the research around aviation had shifted more in direction of the USA and France. Wright came to Germany to produce interest on his planes at the Empire.
The Wright demonstrations continued until 17. September 1909 and after that 20 Wright aircrafts were ordered by the German military. The planes were build at the Flugmaschinen Wright GmbH (Flying Machines Wright Limited) in Berlin Reinickendorf. Also parts of the company were AEG, Borsig, Krupp, Stinnes and the Bankhouse Delbrueck.

A poster announcing the Wright flights and Orville Wright talking to a Prussian officer (maybe Wilbur Wright is also on the photo).

23rd September 1909 - The Frenchman Hubert Latham flew his "Antoinette" over the field and was welcomed by the people. Until 27th September 1909 he repeated his presentations. He didn't reached the records of Wright but actually made the first flight from one location (the Tempelhof Field) to an other (the Airfield Johannisthal - the first Airport of the world) 10km away. This was uncommon and unpresented until that day. Infact he simply decided to fly the distance because a problem with the so far common landtransport of his plane occured and he didn't wanted to wait and took the choice.
As a sidenote: The Berlin Police later gave him a ticket for "public nuisance" including a fine of 150,- Marks for this flight.

Hubert Latham in his "Antoinette" above the Tempelhofer Feld.

From now on all aviation shows took place at the Airfield Johannisthal near Berlin and the Tempelhofer Feld was only used for exercises and parades again.

1910 - Another Emperors Parade is held at the field.

Illustrated postcard of the 1910 Emperors Parade

1914 - Wilhelm II. holds the last parade on the field. After the end of WWI and with the 1918 Revolution it seemed like the time of the huge Prussian excercise area had ended because there was no interest in the military and especially parades anymore.

An airport is born:

During the time the aviation sector grew and it was planed that Berlin should also become a center for international exhibitions therefore the need of an airport closer to the center of the city came up. The Airfield Johannisthal was 12km and the Airshipharbour Staaken 24km away which wasn't considered acceptable.

8th October 1923 - The small Airport Berlin Tempelhof was opened. It was operated together by Junkers and the German-Aero-Lloyd. The installation was build on a leveled area in the northern part of the Tempelhofer Feld. The grass airfield itself had a size of 700x1000m and two 1000m² hangars and a 200m² adminstration building were build next to it.

The first building of the airport a small hut for the first constructionworkers.

19th May 1924 - After realizing that the new airport already operated at it's capacity the Berlin Airport Company was founded with the mission to upgrade the airport in a couple of stages asap.
The first construction works started at the end of the year 1924 and in the beginning of 1926 five hangars with 12.000m² (enough space to park 60% of the civilian German airfleet during the winter) plus a couple of supply and adminstrative buildings were ready. At the End of 1928 the construction works were completly finished. The Airport now had a three floor terminal building and the new concrete apron reached a size of about 100.000m² with concrete taxiways connected to two grass runways with a length of 1.200m each. The fuel storage could hold 170.000 liters of fuel and underground pipelines were directly leading to parts of the airfield. The airfield also had illumination for nighttime landing which consisted of lights aside the runways and a lighttower which had several large floodlights (each had 250 million candle power!) to lead the way for incoming aircrafts.

From left to right: The diffrent construction stages 1925, 1927 and 1928.

31st May - 9th June 1925 - The biggest aviation event since the end of WWI took place at the new airport. The so called "German Roundflight" including the "BZ Grandprix of Aviation" (the BZ is a still existing Berlin newspaper). From now on one "Flying Days" were hold regularly at the airport to attract the interest of the Berlin citizens and publicity in general.

23rd March 1926 - On the occasion of the forthcoming start of regular flights by the newly founded "Lufthansa" on the 6th April 1926 the executive director Erhard Milch welcomes the press in the cockpit of a Udet "Kondor". Junkers and the Aero-Lloyd were forced to merge by the government because it financially supported the civil aviation sector and didn't wanted to pay for two competitors. To represent the former two companies the Junkers company colors (yellow and blue) and the Aero-Llyod logo (the grus) were used to form the new insignia of the airline.

Erhard Milch in the cockpit of an Udet "Kondor" talking to the press.

8th September 1926 - A "Flying Day" organized by the newly founded Lufthansa attracted over 200.000 people. At the opening ceremony 3.500 pigeons had been released. Gerhard Fieseler and Ernst Udet were leading the biggest event (in aviation history) that Germany had ever seen so far with their presentations. The English testpilot Frank T. Courtney presented the "Autogiro" made by the Spaniard de la Cierva. Various other Pilots like Baeumer, von Hippel, Posse, Weigel, Thea Raesche and Elly Beinhorn were also showing their skills. After the skydiving demonstration performed by the married couple Triebner simulated airfights and formationflights in squadron size were presented, A ballon-ramming ended this glory event.

4th Juni 1927 - The "Columbia" piloted by Clarence D. Chamberlain and Charles Levine started in New York City to fly non-stop to Berlin Tempelhof. On 6th of June they landed near Eisleben (Germany) because of a navigation failure they ran out of fuel. After they refueled the aircraft they took off but couldn't find Berlin again and landed near Cottbus. At this landing the airscrew of their plane broke but after a repair they took of again and were lead to Tempelhof by a German plane where thousands of people had waited over 12 hours to welcome them. The crowd was cheeering as the "Columbia" and 14 other planes became visible at the horizon and after some presentation rounds the aircraft landed softly on the runway.
As a sidenote: The "Prinz-August-von-Wuerttemberg" Street on the northern boundary of the airport was renamed to "Columbia Street" in rememberance of this flight. In 1950 it was renamed to "Columbiadamm" (while "Damm" in this case means something comparable to a boulevard in German).

Clarence D. Chamberlain in the cockpit of the "Columbia" at Tempelhof.

30th May 1928 - Welcome of the "Northpole-Flyers" Wilkins and Rielson at the airport.

20th June 1928 - Tempelhof welcomes the "Ocean-Flyers" H. Koehl, G. von Huenefeld and C. Fitzmaurice which flew from Ireland to Greeny Island (between Labrador and Newfoundland).

The "Ocean-Flyers" Koehl, von Huenefeld and Fitzmaurice arrived at Tempelhof.

1928 - Not less then 22 "Flying Days" took place at the airport in this year.

1929 - The airship LZ 127 "Graf Zeppelin" visits Tempelhof after it had finished its "World Tour". Also one of the biggest "Flying Days" was held.

Left LZ 127 "Graf Zeppelin" at the airport and right visitors of a "Flying Day".

1931 - The Junkers G 38 a large plane for 34 passengers with four engines also known as the "Superthing" was visiting the airport. Also the Ju-52 was presented for the first time in publicity and the airship LZ 127 "Graf Zeppelin" landed twice at Tempelhof.

The time of the "Third Reich" and the aftermath:

29th April 1933 - A Junkers G 38 numbered D-2500 was baptized of the name "Generalfeldmarschall von Hindeburg" at the presence of the Reichs President.

A Junkers G38 gets baptized with the name of the Reichs President.

16th Juliy 1933 - The "World-Flyer" Willie Post lands at Tempelhof.

1933/1934 - As the Nazis took over ideas about a "World Airport" which should suite the utopic ideas of the "World Capital" Germania were made by Hitler and his architect Albert Speer.

1935 - The order for the planing and construction of the new airport was given to the architect Ernst Sagebiel. 18 months later on the 4th December 1937 the roofing ceremony for the huge office building was held. All main parts of the airports were finished until 1941 but some upgrading and modernization was going on until the end of the war and was not completly finished.
The airport area itself and the buildings had an enormous size and a couple of absolutley new and never seen before features. Infact the main building is still the second biggest "connected" building on earth after the Pentagon. The entry building for example is 90m wide and 9m deep followed by a 100m long, 50m wide and 12m high terminal building. The gate area is 380m long and has a roof with a length of 49m and and a height of 12m in front of it so the boarding and loading of the airplanes could be done undepended of the weather. The hangars have a complete length of 850m, are 49m deep, have a height of 12m and are equipped with motorized folding doors to shut them completly.
The size of the airport area itself had grown to 2000x1700m and besides the normal airport buildings an own power and a water plant were build to make the airport autonomous from the electrical and water supply of the city.
A huge part of the completly airport area had a basement and bunkers up to five floors deep with it's own railway connection and tunneled streets. During the war some areas were used to produce and assemble Focke-Wulf 190 fighters.
The civil aviation part was transfered to the airport Rangsdorf near Berlin in the first years of the building phase but in 1940 it was refered back to Tempelhof and mainly carried out on the old still existing part of the airport build from 1924 on.
As far as known the airport itself never was the base for any German Air Force fighter or bomber units and was never used as military airfield in the common manner.

Left to right: A flight-policemen gives flag-signals to a Ju-52 m3 around 1935, Scale model 1935 and layout drawing 1936.


Left to right: Roofing ceremony of the terminal building 1937, ongoing constructions 1938 and a part of the catacombs.

1936 - The Olympic Games took place in Berlin and a couple of "Great Flying Days" took place at the Airpot including the International Aerobatic Championship.

A promotional poster for a Flying Day 1936.

10th August 1938 - A Lufthansa crew boards a Focke-Wulf 200 "Condor" numbered D-ACON to perform the first non-stop Atlantic-Ocean passenger flight at the Airport Tempelhof. 25 hours later they reached New York and landed at the Floyd-Bennett Airport.

The FW 200 "Condor" D-ACON at the Floyd-Bennett Airport, NY (Photo: stinsonflyer.com).

Januar 1939 - The same crew of D-ACON flies Berlin - Tokyo non-stop in 46 hours in an other Focke-Wulff 200.

22nd April 1945 - The last aircraft a Ju-52 of the Lufthansa leaves the airfield as Russian artillery already was pounding the forefield. The director of the airport Rudolf Boettger had the order to defend Tempelhof at all costs but this was avoided by the director and the Lufthansa by simply removing all weapons from the area in a covered operation and by establishing a field-hospital instead. Later he got the order to completly destroy the airport but only the groundfloor of the terminal building was blasted and fell on the floor below. It is reported that Boettger commited suicide to avoid any problems with the authority while other sources say he was shot dead by a SS-officer for not following his orders.
Because of the action of Boettger the new part of the airport was still functional with some restrictions after the Russians occupied the city but the old part and the runways were completly destroyed by artillery and bombs in the last days of fighting. The airport was completly seized on the 29th of April and used by the Soviets for a couple of months.

An USAF B-17 "Flying Fortress" over Tempelhof.

4th July 1945 - The Russian occupiers hand over the airport to the up moving American forces. The 473th Air Service Group under the command of Col. William G. Booth was now based at Tempelhof.
Under technical adminstration of the 852nd Aviation Engineer Battalion the airport buildings got repaired, bombcraters were filled and a new runway was build with locked together pierced planks (PAP/PSP).

30th November 1945 - Three "air corridors" are established to connect Berlin with the three west-zones. The corrdiors were 20 miles wide and allied aircrafts were allowed to travel in a height of 300 up to 3000m. The northern corridor connected Berlin with Hamburg, the western one Berlin and Hannover and the southern one Berlin and Munich.

A drawing from 1947 showing the three air corridors.

18th May 1946 - The civilian air traffic starts again as the American Overseas Airline (AOA) opens its first regular line to Frankfurt/Main flown on a weekly basis.

An aerial view on the airfield ca. 1947.

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[T.S.C.Plage]

The "Big Airlift":

24th June 1948 - After the introduction of the D-Mark (the West-German currency) in the three Berlin "west" sectors the Soviet adminstration blockades all land connections to West-Berlin and stops all supply of food, coal, electricity, water and other important goods. Before this day the Russians already had cut the support a couple of times but never in such manner.
The intention of the Soviets was to force the western allies to leave the city but General Lucius D. Clay commander of the US armed forces in Berlin and commander of the city just stated "We'll stay FULLSTOP".
As a sidenote:
- The street "Kronprinzenallee" was renamed to "Clayallee" on the 1st June 1949 to honor Clay's outstanding work for the surrounded city. This street still is the only one in Berlin that was named after a person that was still living at the time of the naming ceremony.
- A year later General Clay was commisioned to escort the Berlin "Freedom Bell" on a triumphal parade around the USA and West-Germany. On the 21st October 1950 he handed the bell over to the Berlin people.
- 1953 Clay was awarded the honorary doctorate of the Free University of Berlin.
- In 1962 Clay becomes honorary citizen of West-Berlin.
- In 1965 he was awarded the Grandcross of the Federal Cross of Merit (one of the highest German medals only awarded 34 times so far).
- 1975 a school in Berlin is named after General Clay.

Left: General Lucius D. Clay (Photo: trumanlibrary.org)
Right: Gen. Clay, Secretary of the State Symington, Chief of the USAF Gen. Vandenberg, Commander
of the USAF in Europe Gen. LeMay and Airport Commander Col. Dorr (from left to right).

26th June 1948 - General Clay orders the two air transport units of Wiesbaden and Frankfurt Rhein/Main to supply the surrounded city. The 32 available Douglas C-47s transported about 80 tons of food to Tempelhof that day. This can be considered the first day of the "Big Airlift" or the "Airbridge" as Berlin citizens called it while the US military named it the "Operation Vittels" relating to the word vitals. Within the load of the aircrafts were also raisins and so the planes commonly became called the "Raisin Bombers" (Rosinenbomber) by the Berlins citziens.

C-47s on the forefield early summer 1948.

28th June 1948 - The Royal Air Force starts "Operation Plainfare" from the small Airport Berlin Gatow. Infact the idea to establish an airlift came from the British side and not from the US as mainly assumed.

1st July 1948 - The 7350. Air Base Group was stationed at the airport to support the growing operation.

7350th Airbase Group at Tempelhof. The B-17 was used as flying weatherstation
to check the changing conditions especially in the southern air corridor.

5th July 1948 - The deliverd air supplied goods had reached 1000 tons and new storages had to be found to store all the incomming goods. Therefore some storages close to airport were requisitioned by the US military in acclamation with the Berlin administration. Also privately owned trucks had to be used to forward all the goods.

Trucks lined up in front of the hangars in a pause between loading.

7th July 1948 - 20 C-54 transporters land at the airport with coal packed in old coffee-bags.

A C-54 "Skymaster" landing at Tempelhof.

8th July 1948 - Because the runway of the airport wasn't ment to take such huge aircrafts like the C-54 it became necessary to build a new one. The old one made of hooked together pierced planks was simply ripped apart under the landing weight of over 30 tons of a C-54. The new southern runway had a length of 1676m, was 42m wide and had an "overrun" zone of 150m for aircrafts that couldn't manage to stop on the runway itself. It was build on brick debris gathered from old ruined buildings around the city. Unfortunately the needed 180 tons of bitumen and 1000 tons of pierced planks weren't available and had to be flown in together with 280 tons of Diesel fuel for the trucks and bulldozers.

Construction works of runway B.

25th July 1948 - Lt. Charles L. King and 1st Lt. Robert W. Stuber died as their plane crashed into the front of a house. Seven days later thousands of citizens met at the town-hall of Berlin Schoeneberg in rememberance of the two pilots. Written condolations and flowers were placed at a tree near the crash-side by the Berlin people.
As a sidenote: You have to remember that this happend only three years after the USAF and RAF had massively bombed Berlin and the sound of incomming aircrafts still gave goosebumps to some people.
As a sidenote:
During the first time of the Airlift US pilots reported that Russian fighters had repeatly crossed their flight pathes in close formationflights and even went on collision curses but no accidents were reported in that case.

The crash-side in Berlin-Friedenau.

28th July 1948 - Major-General William H. Tunner takes over the command of the airlift. General Tunner had the best references for this mission because under his command the air supply from US bases in Burma and India to Southern China was raised from 23000 tons up to 71000 tons a month.

July 1948 - For July the airports Tempelhof and Gatow counted 62587 tons of delivered goods. That is about half of the estimated 135000 tons of supplies that were needed to keep the city alive for a month.

The driving PX at Tempelhof.

13th August 1948 - Three C-54 made a crash-landing at the airport due to bad weather conditions. Gen. Tunner himself was on board of an aircraft that had to circle above the city because of the delay caused by the crashes and immidiately gave out a new order. From this day on each incomming aircraft had to land at the first attempt if that was impossible what ever the reason it had to fly back directly to the base it came from. This was an absolutely uncommon practice for that period of time.

17th August 1948 - A single C-74 delivered urgently needed bulldozers and other euqipment.

29th August 1948 - The construction works for a third runway begun.

12th September 1948 - Right at the "Air Force Day" the second runway was opened. 7000 tons of goods were supplied on this day via the both airports Tempelhof and Gatow.

13th September 1948 - Five C-82 "Flying Boxcars" were delivering urgently needed bulldozers and other machinery.

One of the C-82 at the airport.

September 1948 - 126660 tons of goods were supplied in this month.

AOA presents its achievements.

14th October 1948 - The separated US and British airlifts were brought together under the "Combined Airlift Task Force" (CALTF) commanded by Gen. Tunner for a easier and more effective organisation. Also mentioned should be that France took part at the Airlift with a hand full of Ju-52 which were left overs of the former German Air Force which caused a little trouble as they appeared over the city the first time to land at the Airport Tegel.

Starting up lawnmower style.

17th October 1948 - The USAF conducted "Action Schmoo". 100 balloons with printed on "Schmoo" comic-figures and an attached coupon for a free cup of lard and 500 chocolate balloons were dropped from five incomming planes. 20.000 Berlin citizens "besieged" the airport after the USAF announced this operation that only took place one time.

Waiting for "Schmoos".

October 1948 - 133879 tons of goods were supplied in this month. The USAF C-47 was more and more replaced by the more effective C-54 at the end of year and because of the urgent need of more personal 5000 former USAF members were reactivated and trained in the USA for the special conditions and procedures of the airlift.

Bad weather over Berlin - the forefield 1948.

Early November 1948 - The last 900m of the landing approach got illumination lights for improved landing conditions at night and bad weather.

Start preparations at night.

12th November 1948 - The first US Navy C-54 (R5D) lands at Tempelhof. Two Navy transport squadrons were assigned to support the Airlift.

Aircraft ahoy! The first Navy C-54 at the airport.

17th November 1948 - Technicians which should construct a long range radar installation are landing at the airport and immediately start to work. With this installation the incomming planes could be identified at a range of about 100km and were sorted for the landing approach. A short ranged landing radar already was installed before the Airlift started. This made the landing-procedure a lot easier for the incomming aircrafts. Especially in bad weather it helped a lot because the planes could now be "spoken down" by the radar-operators which simply had to compare the standard landing path with the actual position of the incoming plane and give corrections via radio if needed.
As a sidenote: You have to imagine that the incoming planes had a glide-path of just about 366m and just one and half minute to touch down. During the landing approach they flew just about 30m above the rooftops of the buildings that surrounded the airport. To complicate that a 62m high chimney was standing at the eastside of airport. The aircrafts were sometimes coming in with less then three minutes between each other. Therefore it was absolutely important that everything worked out perfectly.

The short range landing radar 1948.

21st November 1948 - The northern runway was finished. It had a length of 1600m and was 42m wide. American sources say that the building of the southern runway did cost 667670 US$ while the northern one did cost 722260 US$.

25th November 1948 - More then 6000 tons were deliverd on the "Thanksgiving Day".

Unloading of a C-54.

16th April 1949 - General Tunner demonstrates the effectiveness of the Airlift with an "Easterparade". 12000 tons were deliverd on this single day. On this day 91 planes landed at Tempelhof just between 11:00 am and 01.45 pm on the runways of Tempelhof while up to 18 aircrafts were waiting for their "clear for takeoff" together at one time. Up to 1000 takeoffs were taking place at the best times of the airlift each day.

April 1949 - 213512 tons of goods were supplied in this month.

May 1949 - A single Boing C-97 "Stratofreighter" with eight times the capacity of a C-47 performed a couple of flights to Tempelhof.

The C-97 that landed at Tempelhof.

12th May 1949 - The Russians open the land connections to Berlin after nearly a year of the blockade. As only reason for this decision the efficiency of the airlift can be considered important. Some supply flights especially with coal were still conducted but the city itself was no longer addicted to the air support.

In general the operation was a full success and can still be considered as one or even the most impressive countinously ongoing military aviation mission ever conducted during peace times. Over 2.3 million tons of goods were supplied by air during the airlift.
It is reported that 78 people died in direct relation to the operation. May they all rest in peace and may their ultimate sacrifice to save West-Berlin will never be forgotten.
The whole operation showed the strong resolution of the western allies and was a huge step to fortify the good relations between them and the West-German population and of course especially the Berlin citizens. But it also shouldn't be forgotten that without the support and the willing of the Berlin people to stay strong and take the related limitations instead of beeing assimilated into the zone of Russian influence the whole mission would have failed and been senseless.
In 1951 the so called Airlift Memorial was build at a place in front of the airport to remember the operation. It represents the three aircorridors and it was planed that it should have a hull of aircraft aluminum but that was dropped because there simply wasn't enough available at that time. Because of its shape and memories about that time the Berlin people ironically call it the "Hunger Fork".
Two same looking memorials were build in Frankfurt/Main and Celle in 1985 as counterparts at the "other ends".

The Airlift Memorial.

I also want to mention an interesting privately organized effort in the airlift called "Operation Little Vittles" which was established by a USAF Lieutenant named Gail Halvorsen. Lt. Halvorsen took part at the airlift as a C-54 pilot from about mid 1948 and came up with the idea to drop little parachutes at first made of tissues with attached candy, chocolate and chewing gum from his plane to show the kids that were watching the incomming aircrafts his friendly meanings and attention. This of course was really a great action and more and more kids showed up to wait for the "Candy Bomber" or "Uncle Wiggly Wing" as they called him because he announced his arrival with shaking wings. A couple of pilots of his squadron also took part in the operation and soon radio-shows in the USA were promoting his effort which made even little kids donate their pocket money to help out their German contemporaries. It also became necessary that collected parachutes had to be returned to the airport guards for further use. In January 1949 Lt. Halvorsen had to transfer back to the USA and Capt. Eugene C. Williams took over the lead of the operation. At all 25 aircrafts dropped over 22 tons of sweets during the time of the airlift.
As a sidenote:
- In 1970 Halvorsen now USAF Colonel returned to Berlin to take over the command of the Airport Tempelhof for four years.
- In 1971 Halvorsen personally transfered a C-54 that took part at the airlift and placed it on the aiport as a memorial.
- In 1974 Halvorsen was awarded with the Grand Federal Cross of Merit.
- In April 1998 Halvorsen was part of a crew of the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation that flew the C-54 "Spirit of Freedom" from New York to Berlin.
- In 2002 Halvorsen carried the "Germany" sign at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Wintergames in his hometown Salt Lake City on a request of the German team.
- In October 2008 it was requested to award the honorary citizenship of Berlin to Hailvorsen...decision is still open.

From left top to bottom right:
- Kids waiting for the incomming planes.
- Halvorsen's C-54 approaching the Airport Tempelhof.
- Lt. Halvorsen at his Quarters in Wiesbaden.
- Lt. Halvorsen presents his freight at the cockpit window.
- Capt. Williams who took over "Operation Little Vittles" in 1949.
- Col. Halvorsen in Berlin 1983.
- The C-54 placed as memorial by Col. Halvorsen.
- Former German Chanceler Helmut Kohl, former US President Bill Clinton, Gail Halvorsen and Mercedes Wild (one of the
kids that wrote letters to Halvorsen back then) in 1998 at the 50th memorial day of the Airlift at Berlin, Tempelhof.
- Halvorsen at the cockpit window of the "Spirit of Freedom".
- The C-54/R5D "Spirit of Freedom" of the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation.
- Halvorsen gives a thumbs up in front of a C-17 "Globemaster" at Tempelhof.
- Halvorsen holds a speech at the 60th memorial day of the Airlift in 2008.

Here are some links to interesting videos about the airlift (German only). The first one shows footage Gail Halvorsen took himself during his time at the airlift, the second is about the airlift in general and the third shows Halvorsens's flight with the "Spirit of Freedom" from NY to Berlin.

The airlift in color

Raisin Bombers over Berlin

The Spirit of Freedom

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[T.S.C.Plage]

The "Cold War" time:

Unfortunately there's not so much known about the the military use of the airport except that it got repaired and upgraded continuously. Officially no fighter jets or any other heavily armed aircrafts were based there or even shown during "Days of the open door". Of course there are rumors about hidden F-4 "Phantoms" that arrived taken apart in boxes and were reassembled in the catacombs under the airfield to have an advantage in WWIII. Of course all kind of people from soldiers through civilian workers swear they have seen them but of course there has never been a proof.
It may also be interesting that no German airlines or aircrafts (with some exceptions) weren't allowed to fly and land in Berlin during the time of Russian occupation of East Germany.

1st June 1950 - The Berlin Airport Company becomes the right to use and rebuild a part of the airport for civil aviation purposes besides the already existing civilian airtraffic directly related to the allied forces.

9th july 1951 - The small entrance hall and other parts of buildings for the civilian air traffic were opened. During the year other parts were reworked and 17 of the total 49 parts of the airport buildings were used for the civil aviaiton sector again. The British European Airways (BAE) moved from Gatow to Tempelhof and at the end of 1951 Tempelhof has counted 320.000 civilian passengers. Planes like the DC-4 and DC-6 of the PAN AM or the Constellation and Super Constellation flown by Air France now were regularly guests at the airport.

May 1952 - The "Day of the open door" was the first time open for all Berlin citizens and civilians in general. A huge parade of Army, Navy and Air Force units was hold during that event. This day marked a tradition that should be culitvated and expanded in the future.

1954 - The 7350th Air Base Goup which maintained the airport was renamed to 7350th Air Base Squadron.

1957 - Over 1.000.000 passengers had been counted this year and it became necessary to get more space fo the civilian part. Therefore again parts used by the military including the big entrance hall were handed over after some agreements were made in 1959.

1958 - The 7350th became designated the 7350th Support Squaron now.

2nd July 1962 - After three years of repairs and contruction works the teminal and buildings handed over to the Berlin Airport Company back in 1959 were ready for use. From now on around 10.000 passengers were handled day by day.

July 1964 - The "Day of the open door" was accelerated into July to meet the date of the 4th July the American "Day of Independence" and was expanded on to two days in 1965.
The 7350th was designated as 7350th Support Group now.

July 1966 - More 260.000 visitors came to the airport to take a look at the new C-141 "Starlifter" which was the biggest transport aircraft of the USAF at that time.

1966 - In 1960 the airlines had begun to switch to jet planes. Air France had introduced the "Caravelle" which was slowed down by a parachute after landing. For this aircraft the runways of Tempelhof were to short so they had to move to a makeshift at Tegel. PAN AM introduced the Boeing 727 in 1966 and this plane was capable to land at the Tempelhof like the "BAC 111" used by BAE later on, too. So this both airlines could still use Tempelhof.

1968 - A move of the touristic aviation part of the civil avition to the makeshift Airport Tegel was ordered by the Berlin Aiport Company and the USAF because Temeplhof couldn't take all the traffic anymore.

Aerial view of the airport buildings 22nd April 1968.

July 1969 - This year the 20th Day of the Berlin Airlift was celebrated during the Open days. For the first also British and French troops took part in the event. Col. G. Halvorsen was also present that day and dropped little parachutes with sweets from a C-47 over the airfield.

September 1971 - From now on the Open days were celebrated in September again. The C-5A "Galaxy" came to Berlin and was of course the biggest attraction from now on.

A "Day of the open door" in 1984.

1971 - This and the last year the large entrance hall had been reworked to take up to 6.000.000 passengers a year. This became necessary because Tempelhof had counted 5.560.000 passengers in 1971.

1st January 1973 - The 7350th became renamed back to its dsignation from the beginning as 7350th Air Base Group and kept the name till its leave in 1993.

September 1973 - The 25th yearing of the Airlift. On the Open Days Col. Halvorsen now commander of the airport flew a C-54 veteran of the Airlift from Wiesbaden to Tempelhof and simbolically handed over some fluor and coal bags to the Mayor of Berlin-Tempelhof. The C-54 was placed as a memorial on the north of the airport area close to the "Columbiadamm".

September 1974 - This year the "Open House" was all about the US space programm and models of the spaceships "Mercury" and "Apollo" plus the "Skylab" spacestation attracted over 320.000 visitors.

Aerial view of the airport 1974.

31st August 1975 - The two last big airlines PAN AM and BAE moved to the more comfortable Airport Tegel. From now on only taxi-flights took place in the civilian sector at Tempelhof.

May 1979 - The Open days took part in May from this year on.

Typical "Day of the open door" at the airport.

1st October 1985. - The American airline "Tempelhof Airways" starts it's first scheduled flights to Paderborn and later on also to Dortmund.

3rd May 1990 - With the "German Unification Day" the status of allied occupation also ended in Berlin and the 7350th Air Base Group began to prepare its leave.
As first German plane the DC-3 of the German airline "Classic Wings" lands at the airport. From now on various mainly German regional airlines were operating in Berlin Tempelhof and conducting flights on a regular base.

28th January 1993 - The USAF holds its farewell ceremony at the airport with about 1.000 loaded guests.
In Hangar 3 of the airport Col. Gary L. Lindner Commander of the 7350th Air Base Group memorized the most important parts in a short speech:

"Many of the people here will still remember the arrival of the US forces on the 2nd july 1945. Since this day we have been on a unbelievable journey: there was the Airlift, die errection of the Berlin Wall, the many flights to freedom which started and ended here in Tempelhof, the Fall of the Wall and the reunification of Germany. Through all these incidents one thing was for sure: Berlin and the US Air Force - that was a victorious connection."

The Berlin Mayor of that time Eberhard Diepgen delivered the "deeply felt gratitude" of the Berlin citizens and said in his small speech:

"We won't forget that you helped to keep the western part of the city alive for over four decades. During this time the members of this unit have kept alive the three air corridors and therewith the essential connection from and to Berlin and the West. Who was present in the city for nearly 50 years leaves deep traces behind, many friendly relations and connections. it's on us to keep them in the future."

General Robert C. Oaks Commander of the USAF in Europe called Tempelhof a "Bastion of Freedom" and awarded the "Air Force Outstanding Unit Award" to the members of the 7350th Air Base Group.

30th July 1993 - At the end of July the duty of the 7350th finally ended after 50 years of existance and the unit leaves the airport. The Airport Commander handed over the key to the American part of the airport to the President of the Berlin Financeadministration.

9th November 1994 - The new air traffic controll centrum at Tempelhof was inaugurated. The centrum was from now on controlling the complete civilian air traffic above East Germany.

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The photographs, drawings and background infos are mainly taken from the book "Landing on Tempelhof" released by the adminstration of the district of Berlin, Tempelhof.

I haven't really re-read it so please excuse any mistakes. If you've any additional info, correction or questions just post them here.

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Greetz
Plage

[sammy03]

In this airport we used to landed when we go every year for ITB. R.I.P to Tempelhof.

[szr]

Great posts, T.S.C.Plage! I thoroughly enjoyed reading them.

[tluassa]

I wonder what will happen to the Area, after all it will leave a massive hole in the center of Berlin. I would turn at least parts of the Airport into a historical site, and the rest into a Park or something ...

[T.S.C.Plage]

As mentioned the airport buildings are landmarked so they'll stay there for ever.
Not sure if there will be any kind of historical sight but IMHO it would be a good idea to transfer the Airforce Museum from Gatow to Tempelhof and build up an Airlift museum.
The eastern part of the airfield will be used for new housing-projects and it's also planed to have some parkareas there as well.

[T.S.C.Plage]

Some of my pics from the "Day of the open door" that was part of the events in occasion of the 60th anniversay for the end of the Berlin Airlift.




The C-54 was moved from its normal display position and parked in front of the main hangar.


164 feet above sea level.


RIAS (Berlin) = Rundfunk Im Amerikanischen Sektor (Radio In the American Sektor)


Some hangar architecture.


Old painting on a part of the hangar doors.


Some nice "signs" of the former owners are still there.


Another viwe of the main hangar and the main building (entrance hall and gates).


A part of the western hangar, building, the large radar tower and the powerplant.


This pic shows quite good how huge the whole complex really is.

...

[T.S.C.Plage]

The front of the entrance hall.


Flagged Airlift Memorial.


Wreaths placed in front of the memorial to remember the Airlift and the 78 people that gave their lives during that time.

[NavyTimes]

Magnificient thread!

Always kinda sad to see old giants put to rest.