History
The site of the airport was originally Knights Templar land in medieval Berlin, and from this beginning came the name Tempelhof. Later, the site was used as a parade field by Prussian forces, and by unified German forces from 1720 to the start of World War I. In 1909, Frenchman Armand Zipfel made the first flight demonstration in Tempelhof, followed by Orville Wright later that same year. Tempelhof was first officially designated as an airport on 8 October 1923. Deutsche Luft Hansa was founded in Tempelhof on 6 January 1926.
The old terminal, originally constructed in 1927, became the world's first with an underground railway. The station has since been renamed Paradestraße, because the rebuilding of the airport in the 1930s required the airport access to be moved to a major intersection with a station now called Platz der Luftbrücke after the Berlin Airlift.
As part of Albert Speer's plan for the reconstruction of Berlin during the Nazi era, Prof. Ernst Sagebiel was ordered to replace the old terminal with a new terminal building in 1934. The airport halls and the adjoining buildings, intended to become the gateway to Europe and a symbol of Hitler's "world capital" Germania, are still known as one of the largest built entities worldwide, and have been described by British architect Sir Norman Foster as "the mother of all airports". With its façades of shell limestone, the terminal building, built between 1936 and 1941, forms a 1.2 kilometre long quadrant. Arriving passengers walked through customs controls to the reception hall. Tempelhof was served by the U6 U-Bahn line along Mehringdamm and up Friedrichstraße (Platz der Luftbrücke station).
Zentralflughafen Tempelhof-Berlin had the advantage of a central location just minutes from the Berlin city centre and quickly became one of the world's busiest airports. Tempelhof saw its greatest pre-war days during 1938–1939, when up to 52 foreign and 40 domestic flights arrived and departed daily from the old terminal while the new one was still under construction.
The new air terminal was designed as headquarters for Deutsche Luft Hansa (moved in 1938), the German national airline at that time. As a forerunner of today's modern airports, the building was designed with many unique features, including giant arc-shaped aircraft hangars. Although under construction for more than ten years, it was never finished because of World War II. For passengers and freight, the 1927-built terminal stayed in use until 24 April 1945.
The building complex was designed to resemble an eagle in flight with semicircular hangars forming the bird's spread wings. A 1 mi (1.6 km)-long hangar roof was to have been laid in tiers to form a stadium for spectators at air and ground demonstrations.
Read more about this topic: Berlin Tempelhof Airport
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