Tempelhof Airport: from central airport to Tempelhofer Feld

An airport whose approach led between apartment blocks, whose hall was larger than almost any other building of its time and whose apron became the symbol of an entire city: the history of Tempelhof Airport spans 85 years of flight operations and almost every major chapter of the 20th century. Here you’ll find the key stages from Luft Hansa’s central airport through the Airlift to Tempelhofer Feld – and what you can still discover there today as a spotter.

Tempelhof at a glance

Berlin Tempelhof Airport opened on October 8, 1923 and closed on October 30, 2008. In between, it was the home base of Deutsche Luft Hansa, the site of Ernst Sagebiel’s Nazi-era monumental building, a US Air Force base, the hub of the Berlin Airlift and, in the 1950s, one of the busiest airports in Europe. Because the runways were short and the surroundings densely built up, it lost the bulk of the traffic to Tegel early on. Today the airfield is a public park, and the building is a protected site for events and remembrance.

The beginnings: from parade ground to airport

Tempelhofer Feld was originally a military drill and parade ground on Berlin’s southern edge. As early as 1909, motorized aircraft took off here, and aviation pioneers used the wide, flat expanse for demonstrations. When the capital needed a permanent commercial airport after World War I, the city executive decided on its construction in early 1923, and the city council approved it in May.

On October 8, 1923, flight operations began with two scheduled connections, including to Munich and toward Danzig and Königsberg. By the end of the year there were only around 100 takeoffs and landings – air traffic was still in its infancy, and flying was done with small single-engine aircraft such as the Junkers F 13.

In 1924 the Berlin airport company was founded, and over the following years hangars and a first terminal building were built. One detail that drew worldwide attention at the time: from 1927, Tempelhof had its own subway station right at the door.

The real breakthrough came with the founding of Deutsche Luft Hansa on January 6, 1926, from which today’s Lufthansa derives its tradition. The new company made Tempelhof its home airport. From here a route network grew that linked Berlin with Europe’s major cities – flown increasingly with three-engine types such as the Junkers Ju 52, whose story is told in our article on the “Tante Ju”.

The Sagebiel building: monumental architecture with a dark side

By the mid-1930s the old airport was too small. In 1935 the Reich Air Ministry commissioned the architect Ernst Sagebiel to design a new building planned for up to six million passengers a year – an enormous goal for the time. It was built from 1936 to 1941.

The result is a building you recognize instantly in any aerial photo: an arc about 1.2 kilometers long enclosing the circular airfield, which is just under two kilometers in diameter. With roughly 307,000 square meters of gross floor area, it was considered the largest building in the world by floor area for two years. The concept was ahead of its time: terminal, administration and hangars are in a single continuous structure, and a far-projecting canopy allowed passengers to reach the aircraft with dry feet.

The history also includes its dark side. Until November 1936 the site housed the Columbia concentration camp, the only official concentration camp within Berlin city limits. During World War II the unfinished building served armaments production: Weser Flugzeugbau built nearly 2,000 Ju 87 dive bombers and around 170 Fw 190 fighters here under license, and Lufthansa built radar equipment. A large share of the workforce consisted of forced laborers. The site’s operator now explicitly addresses this part of the history in its remembrance work.

The last Lufthansa flight left Tempelhof on April 22, 1945. A few days later the Red Army occupied the airport.

1945 to 1949: US base and Airlift

In July 1945 the Red Army handed the site over to the US armed forces, and Tempelhof now lay in the American sector. From then on, the Americans used the field as a military airfield. As early as May 1946, a civil aircraft landed again, an American Overseas Airlines plane.

The airport became world-famous from June 26, 1948. The Soviet Union had closed the land and water routes to West Berlin, and until May 12, 1949 the Western Allies supplied the city entirely by air. Alongside British Gatow and Tegel, which was built in record time, Tempelhof was one of the three destination airports. At times, supply aircraft touched down at 90-second intervals. To cope with this stream, an additional southern runway was built.

The Americans’ most important workhorse was the four-engine Douglas C-54 Skymaster, while the Douglas C-47 flew mainly in the early phase. The US pilot Gail Halvorsen dropped small parachutes with candy for the children on approach – this gave rise to the term “Candy Bombers” (German: “Rosinenbomber,” literally “raisin bombers”), which still sticks to these aircraft today. The whole operation, with numbers, routes and aircraft, is described in our article on the Berlin Airlift of 1948/49.

In front of the airport building, the Airlift Memorial by Eduard Ludwig has stood since July 10, 1951. Its three arches pointing west stand for the three air corridors over which West Berlin was supplied during the blockade. Counterparts stand at Frankfurt Airport and in Celle-Wietzenbruch. The memorial also commemorates the aviators and helpers who lost their lives in the Airlift.

The 1950s: West Berlin’s gateway to the world

From 1950, the Berlin Senate was again allowed to use part of the airport for civil purposes, though the military remained on the site. On July 9, 1951, the new civil terminal opened. Because German airlines were not allowed to fly to West Berlin due to its Allied status, airlines of the Western powers handled the traffic – above all Pan Am, British European Airways and Air France. More about the US airline is in our article on the history of Pan Am.

The numbers rose rapidly: at the end of 1951 there were around 320,000 passengers, by 1954 more than 650,000 and in 1960 about 1.5 million. The operator counts Tempelhof for this period among Europe’s largest airports, alongside London and Paris. At the same time, for many people who had fled East Germany to the West, the airport was the way into the Federal Republic – flights over the air corridors bypassed the transit routes on the ground.

Phase	Period	Tempelhof’s role	Typical traffic
Central airport	1923–1945	Home airport of Luft Hansa	F 13, Ju 52 and other propeller types
US base and Airlift	1945–1949	West Berlin’s supply hub	C-47 and C-54 of the US armed forces
Main civil airport	1951–1960s	West Berlin’s most important commercial airport	Allied airlines such as Pan Am, BEA, Air France
Niche airport	1980s–2008	Business and regional traffic	Turboprops and small jets

The long goodbye: Tegel takes over

Important as Tempelhof was, it quickly hit technical limits. The two east–west runways were only about two kilometers long, residential districts lay all around, and the building was designed for propeller aircraft. With the jet age, that became a problem.

Air France moved to Tegel as early as 1960, and in 1968 charter and package-tour flights followed. In the early 1970s scheduled traffic left as well, and in summer 1975 civil operations ended for the time being – only the US armed forces continued to use the airport. How Tegel took over this role and later became a legend itself, you can read in our article on the history of Tegel Airport and in the profile of Berlin Tegel Airport.

From 1981, civil traffic returned on a small scale, mainly business and regional flights. After reunification, Tempelhof had one more small heyday: in 1990 it again counted more than 400,000 passengers, and in 1993 the US armed forces handed the airport over completely to the Berlin airport company. Widebody aircraft were never an option because of the short runways, though; traffic remained limited to turboprops and smaller jets.

Closure in 2008: referendum and last flight

With the decision for a major Berlin airport at the Schönefeld site – today’s Berlin Brandenburg Airport – the end of the inner-city airports was politically settled. The Senate enforced the closure of Tempelhof against lawsuits from airlines, and the courts confirmed the date at the end of October 2008.

Resistance arose against the closure. On April 27, 2008, Berliners voted in a referendum on keeping the airport open. Around 60 percent of those voting backed Tempelhof, but that amounted to only about 22 percent of all eligible voters – the required quorum of one quarter was missed. The result was therefore not binding.

In 2007 Tempelhof still counted around 350,000 passengers, and in the closure year 2008 just under 280,000. At the end only a few airlines still flew from Tempelhof, including Cirrus Airlines, InterSky and Brussels Airlines. October 30, 2008 became the farewell evening:

• The last jet to depart, at 10:12 p.m., was an Air Berlin Boeing 737-700 with the registration D-ABAB to Tegel.
• A few minutes later the last scheduled flight took off, a Cirrus Airlines Dornier 328 to Mannheim.
• Shortly before midnight, a Junkers Ju 52 and a Douglas DC-3 provided the symbolic finale – two types that stood for the beginnings and for the Airlift.

The field was not quite empty afterward: three small aircraft stuck because of the weather did not depart until November 24, 2008, including two biplanes of the type Antonov An-2.

Tempelhofer Feld: the airfield as a park

After the last flight, the question arose: what to do with a huge open space in the middle of the city? Berlin took over the site completely in 2009 and opened the former airfield to the public on May 8, 2010. Since then Berliners have jogged, skated, grilled and gardened here – on runways and taxiways that are still clearly recognizable.

Plans for development along the edge failed on May 25, 2014, in another referendum. This time a clear majority of about 64 percent voted to preserve the field, and the quorum was reached. The law to preserve Tempelhofer Feld came into force in June 2014 and largely protects the open space from development.

Since then the building has seen very different uses. From fall 2015 to the end of 2018, the hangars served as emergency housing for refugees, at times home to up to 3,000 people. The halls also host trade fairs, concerts and film shoots. The entire complex is a protected monument; in 2011 it was awarded the title “Historic Landmark of Engineering in Germany.”

Tempelhof today: what you can discover as an aviation fan

No aircraft land at Tempelhof anymore, but the place is still worth a visit for aviation fans. These stops are worthwhile:

If you want to dig deeper into Berlin’s aviation history, two museums complement the visit ideally: the German Museum of Technology Berlin devotes extensive attention to aviation and space flight and also to the Airlift, and the Military History Museum at Berlin-Gatow airfield is located at the second Airlift airport. For current traffic you head to BER – which spots work there is shown in our plane spotting guide for Berlin.

What to keep in mind when visiting

• Building by guided tour only: Large parts of the airport building are not freely accessible. The field, on the other hand, is open during the day but closes at night – opening hours depend on the season.
• Respect for the place: Tempelhof is also a site of Nazi crimes and forced labor. Memorial sites on and around the grounds commemorate this.
• Light for architecture photos: The long arc looks most three-dimensional in low, side light. Check beforehand with a sun position tool when the sun falls on the field side of the building.
• Keep an eye on events: During large events, parts of the apron are closed off, but at the same time you can sometimes get into hangars that are otherwise closed.

Conclusion

Tempelhof was never just an airport. It was the nucleus of German scheduled aviation, the monument of a criminal regime, the lifeline of a blockaded city and, in the 1950s, West Berlin’s window to the world. That it closed in 2008 had less to do with a lack of popularity than with short runways, tight development and the decision for a central major airport. What remains is a building that made architectural history and a field where you can now stroll along the runway on which the Candy Bombers once arrived. More about the development of the hobby that arose at places like this is told in our history of plane spotting.