Airport Stories - Berlin Tempelhof Airport
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- By popular demand, today I'll be casting my eye over the long and varied history of Berlin Tempelhof Airport, once the gateway to the German capital and a symbol of freedom against a backdrop of war and division.
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References:
Tempelhof Projekt GmbH (and their respective sources)
Wikipedia (and its respective references) - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
I remember arriving into Tempelhof in the late sixties. That enormous curved terminal seemed so imposing as we taxied towards it. The aircraft stopped and we disembarked UNDER COVER.
Wow, that was truly impressive.
My grandma remembers this airport when her flight was hijacked. She was a flight attendant based in Gdansk, and it always seemed the Gdansk flights getting hijacked, she says after the 2nd hijacking she wasn't even suprised about it, as it was the easiest way to cross the iron curtain
Did she work for LOT-Landing Often at Tempelhof?
Not just Tempelhof was the Destination, but Bornholm as well.
It's Danzig. The city belongs to Germany
@@kaycey7361 I can assure you its Gdansk and it belongs to Poland.
@@krystiankowalski6726Stolen from Germany.
I served at Tempelhof from 61 to 64. Thank you for this histoy.
Wait what... so that means u were born in 1943?
My daughter and I went on a 2 hour guided tour of the airport this week, it is a fascinating structure, the scale of which is amazing. The site is well worth a visit if in Berlin.
It's also been used for the last couple of years as the site for the Berlin Formula E race weekend, with part of the track going under the overhang.
When I was there they used the autobuan between the soviet checkpoint and the duchelandhalla closed it down from a Tuesday to the following Monday was pretty neet to a 26 year old :-))
I have read of sports car races there to.
@@joestephan1111 I remember that DTM had races there, not on the ePrix circuit though.
I have not been to Tempelhof, but remember reading about it in newspapers, magazines and various articles in the 1970's -90's. The archetecture was a masterstroke of Ernst Sagebiel.
Hey Ruairidh could you do a video on the rise and fall of the Lockheed Tristar please?
Excellent video, very interesting, and the absence of any music enhances your wonderful narration. Thank you.
I was stationed in the barracks there in 1982 before moving into an apartment in the Schonefeld district of Berlin. Such an incredible city. Wonderful people.
I also lived there, on the sixth floor, from 1982 to 1984, before getting married and moving to Marienfelde. ..Snoopy's, Joes am Kudamm, Herm-McNair Nite, Berliner Kindl, Swing Parties...Good times!!
@@billymarx3038 - Haha. Snoopy’s was across the street from the barracks. Herm-McNair (grunts) I believe was Friday nights. I worked at Teufelsberg, all different shifts. What an awesome assignment. Even went into East Berlin, in uniform, with a group of coworkers. 1 US dollar got you 10 East German marks.
I was there from 82-84. 1946 Communications- Light Radar Maint. I lived in H-2 second floor.
Ah, Herm night at the club...good times. Ku-damm, Snoopy's, Joes, Eierschale near the BB. Fond memories!
I really enjoy your content!
It's Sunday, and I can't stop binge watching this channel. Subed immediately. Great documentaries. Very nice.
Sorry, there are plenty of mistakes in this clip. Civil service to Berlin started in May 1946, and not 1945. British civilian carriers did not land at Tempelhof durring the airlift. They used Gatow and Tegel. Freddie Laker however did to some degree got involved in flying east german refugees out of Tempelhof to West Germany durring the fifties. Commercial operations to Tempelhof didn´t started in 1951. That´s when BEA moved their traffic from Gatow to Tempelhof. Air France started flights to Tempelhof in 1950. The landing of a 727 in Dcember 1964 was a demonstration by Boeing. Sceduled sevice with that type didn´t started until 1966. BEA started Bac 1--11 service in 1968 und durring that year also used Comet 4Bs. The 4 powers agreement of 1972 did resulted in a decline of passenger numbers, but the move of Pan Am and BEA to Tegel was long planed with the builing of the new Terminal at Tegel in order to cope with higher demands. Charter flights where already concentrated at Tegel in 1968 with flights operated by Dan Air, Laker Airways and Modern Air. Lufthansa did not fly children out of Tempelhof in, that was Schoenefeld. And British AIrways did not fly out of Tempelhof after the reeunification either. Never the less, US presidents Carter and Regan landed in Tempelhof, while visiting Berlin. Lockheed brought an L1011 to Tempelhof durring a european demonstration tour in 1973 and Pan Am had a 747SP in for the 1976 US Air Force open house and used 747-121 N741PA in June 1987 to transport 300 journalists into Tempelhof, accompanying President Reagan. The US Army had an aviation detachment based there until august 1994. That was the last US military unit to leave the airport.
David Greer I have noticed this “flexibility” with facts in other productions from this provider. With so many subscribers more attention needs to be given to prevent sharing misinformation.
Please do LCNC Nicosia airport next I cant get enough of these videos
patrick that would be a great one!
Another great video, so informative thank you 😊
Thank you for this history lesson. Very much appreciated.
This channel deserves more subs.
Agreed
Was stationed in Berlin 1975 to 1978 Tempelhof was a very interesting building and wathching your video brought back fond memories thank you
I, too, was stationed in Berlin from January, 1970 to March, 1972. My parents flew to Germany to see my brother down in the FRG and me, in Berlin. Lots of good memories of the city.
Berlin was a WONDERFUL post!
If I could go back in time, one of the aviation relating things I’d do (besides fly on Concorde and fly into Hong Kong Kai Tak), is fly in on a commercial flight into here because of how unique this place was!
Yes..i agree with you
@@Frank009-fl or even just witness a fly arrive here. Seeing an airliner come in so close to residential developments is so cool.
This is absolutely spiffing!
Delvin Rodriguez ....a mexican using the term "spiffing" 🤷🏻♂️never thought I'd see that happen, that's for damn sure....
@@branon6565 Lol just saw this now after 6 months. Funnily enough I'm not Mexican though. So I guess you still haven't seen a Mexican use "Spiffing" yet maybe one day you will!
Fantastically researched video, but dear god man... those pauses...
A Excellent Video.. Highly Recommended.. Thank You Very Much For Sharing..
Thank you for the interesting upload. Glad to see this wonderful building is still around. I guess if it was in the UK it would have been torn down, like many other interesting building for more housing.
Nigel, the old terminal building for Liverpool Airport was inspired from the Tempelhof terminal, and still stands. I think it’s a hotel now.
Really interesting video, but a little more research would have helped. The Berlin Airlift was by no means only into Tempelhof Airport but also into RAF Gatow in the south-west of the city and to Tegel where the French Air Force were based. At no time could Berlin have had a border with the Soviet Union! There was a border with the German Democratic Republic, which was under the control of the USSR, and a border ran through the middle of the city between the allied sectors of the city and the Soviet sector, which was the capital of the GDR. Also, the air corridors into West Berlin led not only to Tempelhof, but also to the airfields at RAF Gatow and Tegel.
I was here in 1959, I used one of those elevators that one hops into (not at the airport)
Very nice video!
Needs to say that the closure of Tempelhof in 2008 was a scandal! There had been a referendum to keep THF open which was systematically jeopardized by the the leftist Senate of Berlin, by stating that the result would either way be ignored. With that pretext, voter participation was deterred and although the overwhelming majority of votes (60+%) favored continuing operations, missing the required quorum by less than a single percentage point was enough for the Berlin senate to deem the referendum failed. Needless to say that the Berlin government responsible was a coalition government including the PDS,the successor of the Ex-GDR communist Party SED that ruled the terror regime over soviet occupied Eastern Germany for 40 years...
There were several investment proposals including keeping THF open to regional jet services which were all rejected and defied by the Berlin Senate, although they would have taken the financial burden of the enlisted buildings from the public budget AND provided desperately needed runway and terminal capacity to the Berlin airport system. Instead, the Berlin Airport Company (state owned thus wasting taxpayers' money) still invested close to 100m Euros into Tegel, of which was sure that this investment would be wasted once BBI opened. On top of that, the upkeep of the enlisted THF-buildings due to (forceful) rejection of investors, ejection of airline customers and subsequent closure of the airport, has to date put a burden of more than 1bn Euros onto the Berlin budget!
Berliners joke that in Tempelhof, Stalin DID win the cold war postum... A sour joke.
The big joke in Berlin now is the new Berlin Brandenburg airport
Heard a story regarding the movie bunker under the airport: As it was highly flammable film, a soviet soldier lighting his cigarette accidentaly started a fire.
Soviets never were accused of being mental giants.
Amazing building.
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I feel that your pauses between sentences are a Beat too long. - but this is a good well made and interesting video.
FreightLurker ....I guarantee how you feel about anything matters not to the narrator of this vid....
@@branon6565 if there is no point commenting, why did you bother commenting?
I believe I may have been one of the last pilots to ever receive a corridor check before the corridors were abandoned with the re-unification. I have a great picture of our squadron’s C-20 sitting under the cover while we waited for Chancellor Kohl. We had no idea what was about to take place but evidently the leadership of Germany understood as we were kept busy flying both the Chancellor and President Weisacker into the city since they were forbidden from flying on a West German aircraft. Several years before this, I flew a C-141 into the airport and was amazed you could see people’s TV through the apartment windows on either side of the flight path as you approached the runways. It was a tight fit. I remember the base commander telling me there were lowers levels of the building that were flooded and no one knew what was down there. I was amazed and still awed by the size of the terminal.
i started and landed a few times there... i can remember it very well (untill i was 13 it was open)... i lived just a few hundred meters away on mehringdamm and as far as i know it was not noisy and i was living on the top floor...
I used to live in Schöneberg near Kleistpark. Every morning when the Do228 of LGW turned to Rostock over my house, I knew it was time to leave for work.
Flew from and to THF to Toulouse via Brussels when I proposed to my wife. I remember landing in THF. From leaving the aircraft to turning the key to my apartment door: 16 minutes!
One of the best content out there!!
And incredibly interesting
Augustus the strong was never a Prussian king. He was King of Saxony at a time when Prussia and Saxony were competitors for the reign in Poland, although Augustus never went to war with Prussia...
Great. Another railway video coming soon?
The only thing I (thought I ) knew was that in time for the 1936 Olympics, Templehof was the state of the art airport, and was the model for all future modern airports.
For the first time ever aeroplanes landed and parked by the terminal allowing passengers to be under cover. Also Arrivals were separated from Departures etc. and the modern airport was in essence invented.
Sabena and SAS could only fly to THF on charters until 1990.
Funny you should mention Lufthansa's CityLine - well, I suppose not so much funny as surprising - but in lieu of typical 2 or 3 week holidays, my son (born in the early 80s) and I often opted for long weekend city-hopping, and airlines such as CityLine, which we discovered more or less by accident when our flight to London was cancelled, turned out to offer very different experiences, such as flying from Frankfurt to Heathrow or Gatwick not via some short-haul two-engine boring Airbus jet channelling future Ryan Air or Air Berlin cattle runs, but landing right in the middle of London at London City Airport on an Embraer (or Bombardier?) turbo-prop.
PS: For some reason, though I used to fly into Berlin more or less regularly, my first thought when hearing Tempelhof Airport has always been Wilder's "One, Two, Three" (1961) film ( th-cam.com/video/bKaRLlGPfAE/w-d-xo.html ), which begins and ends at that location. Not only do I immediately see Jimmy Cagney yelling "Sitzen machen!!" at his newly faux-denazified office staff which insists on standing at attention and clicking their heals every time he walks in the room, but of Aram Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance". It's positively pavlovian.
Templeholf airport should be designated and preserved as a historic site before plans have it demolished.
It in fact is enlisted so under protection, which is costing the Berlin Senate millions of Euros every year (see my general comment).
It already is.
Very informative! Great video, subscribed
What did Stalin's slave labor build? And where were THEY "housed"???
Why do you state that Templehof was THE airport for the Berlin airlift? without mentioning ther others? Gatow (in the British sector) and Tegel (in the French sector) were just as vital as receiving airports. The story of the expansion of Tegel is particularly impressive. (Built by military engineers and German civilians in 49 days.) Gatow received more than a third of all Airlift flights..over 110,000....
Great pronunciation of German words! Something rare when hearing native English speakers try to say German words and names.
@Dionne Sier Not quite. He mispronounces Tempelhof and Lufthansa. Tempelhof has a long "o" and the stress in Lufthansa is in the "Luft" syllable not in "hansa".
The airport and terminal was also used as a campsite in 2015 to house Syrian refugees when Angela Merkel gave the go-ahead for the refugees to enter the country.
True. Merkel -single handedly destroying Europe
@@rodneyhull9764 lol, what nonsense. Refugees were on the move and Merkel didn't decide to "get them to Europe" or anything, millions were already on the Balkans route. The only thing Germany could have done was to beat them back at the border, so they stay in Balkans and Mediterranean countries, which already were obliged to handle most refugees due to EU laws and which back then just had been forced into austerity by Germany. So not allowing refugees into Germany would actually have torn the EU apart, given the prevalent anti German sentiment in the southern EU at that point in time.
Really enjoyed your video, hope to visit it someday
I my self, my son and a friend landed at Tempelhof june 2006 VM football. We flew as passanger on a Sterling Boeing 737 from Copenhagen and I have a picture some where of that. :)
Very interesting documentary and very well done. Too bad it's closed. Hopefully it will reopen for private and limited commercial traffic. Airports are a vital necessity.
Are there any remains of the original Templar buildings from the 13th Century or were they completely bulldozed away for the military buildings and the airfields? Will any archaeological dig be done to see what if anything is left?
Great video. I was station in Berlin from 1975 to 1977.I flew into the airport many times.Also,went to social events at the Silverwings.
Silverwings? Would you like to explain? Regards from the Netherlands
Was a lifetime wish to visit Tempelhof, my friends and I landed in their PA 28 Warrior a few weeks before it closed in 2008. Is my prized logbook entry. The apron was a huge parking lot covered in light aircraft. The interior of the building was amazing.
So sad, this iconic airport. It will be turned into a refugee camp 😂 unbelievable. And when they say its temporary it will be forever. You know how it goes.
Small sidenote: during the Nazi era Tempelhof was pronounced 'Tempelhoof'. No idea why, I just recently found out aswell.
it’s always been pronounced like that 😂 the o is long
Its written Tempelhof but you say Tempelhoof
Tempelhoaf rather (If you assume an English pronounciation)
A very enjoyable
Video 10/10
Lest we forget!:-| 🖖
Marvel's civil war and hunger games were both filmed their.
Great video with a lot of historical information. I thought that some of the pictures of the early airlines were especially good. Thanks for posting.
An excellent documentary video, but I would criticize the excessive pauses left between your sentences. It gives the presentation a very slow and jerky pacing that can actually result in a viewer growing bored with otherwise fascinating content. Otherwise you have an excellent presentation style here. All it needs is a little tightening up.
Tempelhof is likely to become a permanent racing facility similar to Mirabel airport
Such a shame they didn't keep it open as a general aviation airfield.
Also in 1972, it became easier to transit the DDR via surface routes.
why do you keep pausing?
24:05 - AS the final plane took off, the pilot was heard to say: 'Vee Russians got ze last laugh afterl all'.
☮
The terminal design is fabulous, the under-roof aircraft positioning reminiscent of Pan Am's Worldport at JFK in the B707 era.
Lufthansa ought to use the airport as an aircraft museum featuring any airframes from their history. The terminal could be used as a historical display area for other Lufthansa memorabilia, of which there must be plenty, they could have a large area set aside as a function facility Conference or Trade Hall area for hire. Any income generated for the upkeep of the building and displayed aircraft. One runway could be kept for any new aircraft arriving for permanent display, while the parallel runway farthest from the terminal be returned to nature with surrounds for a park/recreational area used for festival events,
There is much positive use that could be made of this historical landmark. Just a pity wrist-flapping fetid troglodyte had his hateful paws on it. That history need not be promoted nor Speer's contribution, just quietly ignore those details.
The history of the Berlin airlift out to be featured there with era-appropriate aircraft. Perhaps they could sell 'parachute candy'!
Yes, turning it into a proper aviation museum seems like a suitable fit given its historical significance after the war
Has anyone realized that the narrator is just reading out wikipedia word by word... horrible
Great video, but what is that horrible noise on the audio. It's like a high pitched throbbing sound and it's so overpowering on this video!
i miss the music
Another 👍, Mr MacVeigh! You're the best!
I was stationed there 1961-1964 USAF.
Berlin Air Traffic Control Center.
Thanks for the history.
The civilian version of the Air France "C-54" would be properly called a DC-4.
Sure it could be a regional smaller aircraft airport
I think it is also being used now - partially, at least - to house refugees and migrants.
True.
Lucky to have flown in/out of all three commercial Berlin airfields.
me too, now waiting for first flight from new Airport BER...
Excellent video, thank you. I enjoyed using Tempelhof when I was living in Berlin because it was so central and convenient to get to with the subway. I remember thinking, every major city ought to have a Tempelhof like airport, right in the middle of the city.
nice, but it's basically like having a reader from the Wikipedia page, I wish there had been at least some research
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Tempelhof_Airport
I have landed at this airport many times in war thunder.
'Germania' is pronounced with a hard 'G'.
Thanks for a wonderful documentary on Tempelhof. I was based there late 60's/early 70's with BEA. Fond memories of the West Berlin of those days (and ice skating at the Europa Centre).
I was there recently. It's beautiful!
Great presentation, I really enjoyed it. At time of writing I am scheduled for a tour of the airport and buildings. You have to sign up for it well in advance. I was in Berlin a few weeks ago and there wasn't a chance to get on a tour, so I am going back this week specifically for this.
What happened with the other films?
Excellent documentary of a fascinating place. My father used to organise charter flights for works outings around 1961/2 and he always told me one of those trips was the first ever charter flight into Berlin Templehof. I've no reason to doubt it but he was given to embellishment, he defo went there but the first? I just don't know. He'd created a little company called Blue Skies Travel, which made nominal profit but he did manage to sell the name for a decent amount. He claimed to have met Freddie Laker a few times, but again, I suspect that was just to sound good at dinner parties! I love your documentaries (sorry, not into trains!) but this had a relevance to me so was doubly interesting. Thank you.
The terminal was represented by USNS Treasure Island admin.building in Indiana Jones Last Crusade,also was the court martial scene for the Caine Mutiny
Please do Munich - Riem.
Wonderful explanation of a treasured facility by an obviously skilled British crew.
I had the chance to visit it (they give tours in English and German) and it's really worth it and a beautiful structure.
I visited in 2002 ostensibly to go to the toilet. I couldn’t believe that there were working bomb shelters under the building!
Could you make one on Le Bourget and Croydon?
Is this the build where they were shooting some "Counterpart" tv series stuff? Looks super similar.
As I recall, the city referendum resulted in a vote to keep the airport open, however the participation threshold needed to make it valid was not reached and so the original decision stood. This raises the interesting possibility that if more people had voted to close the airport it might have stayed open!
Another great video which has been thoroughly researched. Personally I like the style of narration - A calm delivery with pauses is ok with me 👌👍
interesting to hear that there were flights by lufthansa and cirrus air from berlin to the tiny mannheim airport, which is a mere twenty minutes drive from the home of late chancellor helmut kohl in oggersheim...
Great content! One suggestion: if you cut out the long breaks the pacing would be so much better and the video more interesting
I heard the news that after the lockdown, Brandenburg will open and Schoenfeld and Tegel will be closed
Yeah unless they’re gonna move the opening date again, it’s been almost ten years
Brandenburg is just a new terminal at Schoenfeld. SXF’s field isn’t closing, its just getting a new name.
Nice. However, your statement about "no accidents" wasn't totally correct: Tempelhof was also open for General Aviation, and in 2001 a Cessna crashed while trying to land in Tempelhof. Link to a (german) newspaper article: www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/absturz-cessna-in-berlin-abgestuerzt-11270777.html
He said "no serious accidents"..... Not sure a single engine Cessna counts?
Tempelhof, do not demolish
for some time it was also the biggest building on the planet
It is massive shame that Templehof (which I first visited in 1966 when living in the city) is redundent as an airfield (recreational use is ok) - more so when you look at the ex-Soviet era monstrosity at Shonefeld (I have flown to and from there) and the build that is allegedly going to replace the original. Not to mention over spend, time over-run, inept management and loss of reputation to Berlin. Some appalling decisions have a habit of becoming reality - as is the case here.😐Sad lad from Hoylake
I had the privilege of visiting this airport back in 2005 with my dad.
That was great !!
Thanks
Great video, love your narration on the Tempelhof airfield, really adds to its historical perspective.
Good video.
The common shorthand that Hitler “rose to power” is an inadequate metaphor. He was appointed as Chancellor by President Hindenberg in January 1933.
Support for the Nazi Party had actually started to fall after peaking in the July 1932 elections. In the November 1932 elections its vote fell by two million.
In German 1930-1933 the question was revolution or counter-revolution. The latter won.
Eighty years since Hitler’s coming to power
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/02/02/pers-f02.html
Wow ... This is a really amazing video! Thx