Tempelhof Airport

The dream to fly spans many millennia of human history. At the end of the 19th century, the Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin provided courageous aviation pioneers with a popular area for testing new types of aircraft. In 1909, prototypes of Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin and Orville Wright set the first flight records. 24 years later Tempelhof Airport was put into operation. In January 1926, Deutsche Lufthansa AG was founded and started scheduled flights from Tempelhof. The Nazi regime started to construct a monumental new airport in 1936 – a project that was stopped by the Second World War. Instead, a shanty camp for forced labourers deported from occupied countries was built on the edge of the airfield. The Soviet army took over the airport from April to July 1945 and subsequently transferred it to the US Air Force. From 1948 to 49, the Soviet Union cut West Berlin off from water and land supply routes, forcing the Allies to implement an airlift to bridge the supply bottlenecks. At the time of the division of Germany, Tempelhof Airport was a symbol of hope and freedom for many West Berliners, since civil air traffic was the only way to travel directly from West Berlin to Germany. In 2008, aviation was eventually suspended. Guided tours of Europe's largest architectural monument tell exciting and touching stories from the eventful history of the place.

Tempelhof Airport
Tempelhofer Damm 1
12101 Berlin
Germany
+49 (0) 30 - 200037414
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