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| Here's a vintage photo of Tempelhof (I don't remember where I obtained it, unfortunately). This is from the post-War era, as the Nazi eagle statue has been removed from the roof and replaced with a radar antenna. |
The new airport was delivered in the mid-1920’s, and air traffic in Berlin and around the world continued to grow. When Hitler came to power
in January 1933 and proposed that Berlin should become Germania, the new capital
of Europe – Tempelhof, as the capital city’s airport, would have a large
role in the futuresque city, although that National Socialist vision of the future never came to pass.
Heeb’s thesis outlines the development of the architecture
of the updated airport, its placement in the city, and some of the new cultural
context that the Nazi architects capitalized on during its design. She notes that Albert Speer played a
relatively minor role in the design of Tempelhof, contributing suggestions to
the actual architect, which was Ernst Sagebiel. The plan for the district including the airport shows that what
is now Platz der Luftbrucke was originally envisioned as part of a large circle, with the airport located to the southeast. The openings in
the smaller buildings that flank the terminal building were oriented
towards the monument a short distance away at the top of the hill in Kruezberg
Park.
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| A picture of the terminal building I took during a visit in 1995. |
Heeb's document also has a photo inside the hangar areas
showing the large cantilevered roofs. She has a structural drawing to accompany the
photograph – but as I look at them I am reminded that they were designed to
potentially hold bleachers that overlooked the airfield, where public events
could someday be held. The hangars were designed to be boarding areas but the bleachers on top of them were never built.
The airfield went into service between 1938 and 1939; while
some portions were never finished, it wasn’t long before the advent of World
War II caused all construction to start.
Not long after that, parts of the airfield were used to retrofit
civilian aircraft to military use. Heeb
cites a statistic that 1,960 Junkers 87 aircraft were assembled and tested here
from 1941 to 1944, employing up to 5,000 workers. There’s a photo of airplanes being assembled
in Hangar 4.
Although air traffic continued to grow in Berlin, by 1940
the main air transport functions for the city were moved away from Tempelhof to
Rangsdorf so that the building could be used for these industrial
functions. Tempelhof itself became a
military target, with many of the old buildings destroyed by allied bombing,
and the building with the surrounding “Germania” complex were never completed
as envisioned by the Nazi planners.
From my own perspective, this brief history added some
insight for me. I certainly remember
those hangars – many administrative functions were maintained in those old parts of the
building when I was stationed at Tempelhof in the 1980’s. The hangars were also used for women’s dormitories
– many of the large rooms there - former offices - housed two women each.
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| My friend's book, which can be found on Amazon. |
These days, any mention of the roofs of the hangars calls to
mind the novel my friend Dale Lindemann wrote, “Last Flight from Tempelhof,”
which I’ve mentioned on the blog before.
His geopolitical thriller is centered on the airport and environs in a
near future time, when the airport has been repurposed as an amusement park and
the stadium seating finally added to the rooftop there.
Finally, I remember walking through the hangars one day only
to see an Antonov 2 biplane down there, with a crudely painted red star on the
empennage. It had been used by a couple
of Polish nationals to flee the socialist government, flown in low to avoid
radar detection and landed at Tempelhof, where the pilot and passengers sought
asylum in the West.
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