Tempelhof

Some time ago the Berlin authorities decided to build a whole new airport, which is due to be completed in 2012 near Schönefeld. Part of the bargaining agreement was to close some of the existing airports (of which there are currently three) and one of them being Tempelhof. It's closing its normal air operations in the end of this month, and given its importance in Berlin history we got ourselves onto a tour on Saturday.

This airport is located in the centre of the city and was used in the Luftbrücke, the Berlin Airlift in 1948-49 when the allies brought food and necessary daily goods into Berlin. Back then it must've been one of the largest air operations ever - they had planes landing and taking off every 90 secs... which is now the amount of traffic that Frankfurt airport is receiving. Along with that it's the third largest building in the world (square meters area wise), and largest outside the United States (after Pentagon and smth else).

Something ridiculously small like 10% of it is currently used, and no-one really knows what's going to happen to it in the end of this month when it's no longer going to be used as an airport. The tour was quite interesting and the guide told us quite a few facts about how it was built and reconstructed over the years. For example, underneath the airport there's a huge system of channels for air/water/what have you... some crazy amount of kilometres, which gave birth to a number of legends about the dark forces living beneath the surface. As part of the tour we were also taken onto the roof, where we could see the field and various old school planes. There are flight tours that one can do on some of the old planes that were originally used in the air lift... the Rosinenbombers... literally Raisin Bombers, because the pilots used to throw down candy and sweets for the kids around the airport in little parachutes.

We also went down into the bombproof bunkers underneath. On some of the walls there were quite nice paintings but sadly there wasn't really enough time to work out what they were or why they were painted. These bunkers were one of the most solid built, and were fairly well planned... for example each room had a latch which controlled air pressure. Should the pressure drop below a certain point, the latch opens automatically to let more air in (pic. 1). One of these bunkers used to have, what they think, the Nazi film archives during the war (pic. 2)... because they were very solid and very well protected (a huge metal door at the entry). So when the Ruskies got to Berlin and got to that door they either needed to have the code or blow it up... guess what they picked? Sadly the blast caused all film to catch fire and nothing could be recovered.

1. 2.

It's fascinating finding out new things about the city you live in. More pictures here.