Berlin Tempelhof Airport

Hardly any airport in the world has seen as much history in such a small space as Tempelhof. Deutsche Luft Hansa landed here, the “Rosinenbomber” (candy bombers) came in during the blockade of 1948/49, and Pan Am and British European Airways flew through the air corridors to West Berlin from here. Since October 30, 2008, nothing takes off from Tempelhof anymore – but the enormous building still stands, and on the old runways you now get around on foot, by bike or with a kite. For spotters, THF is a piece of aviation history you can still walk into today.

From parade ground to airport

Long before scheduled aircraft landed here, Tempelhofer Feld was a drill and parade ground of the Prussian army. The large, flat area attracted aviation pioneers early: balloons and airships rose from here, and in 1909 Orville Wright demonstrated powered flight on the field – just six years after the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk.

In 1923, Berlin’s city councilors decided to build a commercial airport here. On October 8, 1923, flight operations began, at first with simple, makeshift facilities. Three years later, the newly founded Deutsche Luft Hansa made Tempelhof its home airport. That made the site the center of German air traffic – with aircraft such as the Junkers Ju 52, whose story is told in the article on “Tante Ju” (“Auntie Ju”).

The building by Ernst Sagebiel

From 1936, a new airport building designed by the architect Ernst Sagebiel was built that dwarfed everything before it. The building describes a wide arc about 1.2 kilometers long and has roughly 307,000 square meters of gross floor area. At the time, it was considered one of the largest buildings in the world by floor area. It was intended as a showpiece of the National Socialist regime – with a reception hall, hangars and a roof grandstand from which tens of thousands could watch air shows.

The building was never completed. With the outbreak of war, work stalled, and parts of the main hall remained a shell. Instead, military aircraft were built and repaired in the halls, mostly by forced laborers. The nearby Columbia concentration camp, which existed from 1934 to 1936, is also part of the site’s history. Anyone walking across the grounds today therefore also encounters this dark side of history.

Architecturally special is the far-cantilevered canopy over the apron. Aircraft taxied right under the roof so passengers could board and deplane in the dry. In historical pictures, exactly this backdrop – an aircraft tail under the huge roof – is the surest identifying feature of Tempelhof. Since 1995, the entire ensemble has been a listed monument.

End of the war and US airport

At the end of April 1945, the Red Army occupied the airport. After Berlin was divided into sectors, Tempelhof lay in the American sector, and in early July 1945 the US armed forces took over. For the Americans, the site, as “Tempelhof Central Airport,” became the most important base in the city, which they used into the 1990s.

Civil air traffic returned as early as 1946. On May 18, 1946, American Overseas Airlines started the first commercial scheduled service after the war. Later Pan Am took over this company and with it the Berlin traffic. For Lufthansa, Berlin remained off-limits until 1990: under the four-power status, only airlines of the three Western Allies were allowed to fly to the city in scheduled service, and only through fixed air corridors over East Germany.

The 1948/49 Airlift

In June 1948, the Soviet Union sealed off the land and water routes to West Berlin. The Western Allies responded with an unprecedented supply operation from the air. On June 26, 1948, the first American transports landed at Tempelhof, and the British flew to Gatow from June 28. From December 1948, the airport in the French sector was added, which you know today as Tegel.

At the beginning, the Americans mainly used the twin-engine C-47 (military DC-3), and the four-engine C-54 Skymaster quickly came to dominate. The aircraft landed in such dense succession that Tempelhof became the epitome of the Airlift for many Berliners. The American pilot Gail Halvorsen dropped candy on little handkerchief parachutes for children on approach – hence the nickname “Rosinenbomber” (raisin bombers; in English, “candy bombers”).

The Airlift claimed lives: American and British airmen and German helpers died in crashes and accidents, with figures differing depending on the source. The Airlift Memorial on Platz der Luftbrücke, unveiled on July 10, 1951 and designed by Eduard Ludwig, commemorates them. Its three ribs point west, toward the three air corridors. Berliners gave it the nickname “Hungerharke” (“hunger rake”). The whole story is told in the article on the Berlin Airlift, and you’ll find more on the most important aircraft of the first weeks in the profile of the Douglas DC-3.

Gateway to West Berlin

After the blockade, Tempelhof became West Berlin’s civil hub. In 1951, a civil terminal began operating, and the same year British European Airways (BEA) moved its Berlin services to Tempelhof. Air France also flew here from 1950 but switched to Tegel in 1960. Because Lufthansa wasn’t allowed to fly to Berlin, Pan Am and BEA served a large share of the domestic German routes to and from West Berlin – a network that existed nowhere else like this.

The aircraft of this time are classics today. In the 1950s, Pan Am used piston-engine aircraft such as the Douglas DC-6 and switched to the Boeing 727 from 1966 – a Boeing demonstrator had already landed at Tempelhof in 1964. From 1958, BEA flew the turboprop Vickers Viscount, among others, and from the end of the 1960s the BAC One-Eleven. The development reached its peak in 1971 with a good 5.5 million passengers a year.

The types in the table are examples of each era, not a complete fleet list.

Too small for the jet era

As central as the location was, the space was tight. The two parallel runways 09L/27R (2,094 m) and 09R/27L (1,840 m) lay in the middle of the city area and couldn’t be extended. Apartment blocks stood all around, with Neukölln to the east and Schöneberg to the west. With ever larger jets and growing traffic, Tempelhof reached its limits.

The solution was Tegel. The new terminal there had been completed in 1974, and on September 1, 1975, Pan Am and British Airways moved all their Berlin services over. Tempelhof thus lost its scheduled traffic overnight and remained mainly an American military airfield. You can read how things went on at Tegel in the entry on Berlin Tegel Airport and in the magazine article on the history of Tegel.

Comeback as a city airport

In 1981, Tempelhof reopened for civil flights, now with smaller aircraft for business travelers and regional connections. After reunification, the Allied restrictions fell: from October 3, 1990, companies other than those of the Western Allies were also allowed to land here. In 1993, the US Air Force withdrew and handed the airport over entirely to the Berliner Flughafen-Gesellschaft. The airport’s ICAO code was finally EDDI.

In the following years, Tempelhof was a popular city airport for business travelers: short distances, U-Bahn at the door, small aircraft. Most recently only Cirrus Airlines and Brussels Airlines flew in scheduled service, with business and private flights added. The airport never again reached large traffic numbers: in 2007, around 350,000 passengers were still handled.

Referendum and the last flying day

The end had been decided long before. In the 1996 consensus decision, the federal government, Berlin and Brandenburg agreed on one large capital airport at Schönefeld – and on closing the inner-city airports. There was resistance to the closure of Tempelhof. In the referendum on April 27, 2008, around 60 percent of participants voted to keep it open. But because that was only just under 22 percent of all eligible voters and a quarter would have been needed, the referendum failed at the quorum.

On October 30, 2008, it was over. In the evening, an Air Berlin Boeing 737-700 departed as the last jet, shortly afterward a Cirrus Airlines Dornier 328 to Mannheim took off as the last scheduled flight. The symbolic final point came shortly before midnight with a Ju 52 and a DC-3, which took off together as the last official departures – two aircraft types that stand for the Luft Hansa era and the Airlift. A few light aircraft, including Antonov An-2s, only departed on November 24, 2008. How to capture such farewells on other occasions is described in the article on farewell flights and first flights.

Tempelhofer Feld today

After the last flight, the field stayed closed at first. On May 8, 2010, it opened as a public park, and Berliners immediately took over the old runways. Today Tempelhofer Feld is one of Berlin’s best-known open spaces. Cyclists, skaters and kite buggies use the wide asphalt runways, and there are barbecue areas, a dog run, community gardens and protected meadows for skylarks. The field is maintained by Grün Berlin GmbH, and opening hours depend on the season.

Politically, the field remains a constant topic. In the referendum on May 25, 2014, around 64 percent voted to keep the area free of development; the law for the preservation of Tempelhofer Feld came out of it. Even so, edge development is discussed again and again, for example as part of an ideas competition initiated by the Senate. How things go on with the field’s edge is open as of October 2026.

The building also has new tasks. Tempelhof Projekt GmbH markets hangars and halls for trade fairs, concerts and events; Formula E races also took place on the apron. From autumn 2015 to the end of 2018, several hangars served as emergency accommodation for refugees, and until 2019 a container village also stood on the site.

Opening hours, tour dates and prices change regularly – check the current information on the official website before your visit.

Experiencing Tempelhof as a spotter

You no longer see aircraft at Tempelhof – but hardly any place in Germany lets you feel aviation history as directly. A good plan for a Berlin day: start at the Airlift Memorial, take a tour of the building and then walk across the field to the middle of one of the old runways. From there, you get a sense of how tight the space was between the houses of Neukölln and Schöneberg.

If you want to see real aircraft afterward, head to Berlin Brandenburg Airport. The observation deck at BER offers a legal view of the apron; more spots and tips are collected in the spotting guide for BER. You’ll find historic aircraft at the German Museum of Technology in Kreuzberg, which also has an Airlift connection, and at the former British Airlift airfield Gatow in the Military History Museum – you plan the visit with the spot entry for Gatow airfield. The overview of aviation museums in Germany lists more destinations.

Conclusion

Tempelhof was a pioneer field, Luft Hansa home, symbol of the Airlift and gateway to West Berlin. Ernst Sagebiel’s huge building also tells of the dark side of German history – and of the transformation into a place where the candy bombers kept the city alive. Because the airport lay in the middle of the city, it became too small in the jet era and closed for good in 2008.

For you as a spotter, THF is now two things: an archive topic for old pictures and logbook pages, and a place you can actually walk onto. Anyone who has stood on the old runway 09L/27R and seen the building on the horizon understands why so many Berliners were attached to this airport. You can read the detailed history in the magazine article on Tempelhof Airport, and the airline side in the profile of Pan Am.