Arrivals This Way
Berlin’s Tempelhof Flughafen was once the grandest airport in the world and you can see the traces even before you quite get to what is now an unusual museum. The closest metro station is Platz der Luftbrucke, or ‘Air Bridge Place’, and one of the exits points you to Manfred von Richthofen Strasse, named after the most famous of the German World War I air aces. At the huge traffic circle in south Berlin you notice the block-like buildings from the Nazi era, their grimness underlined by large, pugnacious-looking high-relief plaster eagles protruding from the walls.
Adolf Hitler meant this airport to be the centre of his intended world capital of ‘Germania’. When coming into shape between 1934 and 1941, Tempelhof, with its towering shell limestone façade, was literally concrete proof of Nazi Germany’s ability to execute its grand projects. The curving galleries of the building were intended for viewing the sleek air fleets of the Nazi air force, the Luftwaffe, as they taxied past in victory parades.
In less than four years from the completion of Tempelhof’s first stage, pug-ugly, bullet-ridden Soviet Air Force jets were coming in to land through plumes of smoke rising from a Berlin devastated by the Red Army. A few months later, the airport passed over to the other victors, the Americans. By 1948, Tempelhof was indeed the centre of the world’s attention, but not as Hitler and Hermann Goering, the boss of his air force, had intended. The Soviets blocked land access to West Berlin, obliging the Americans to deliver supplies to their beleaguered sector for nearly a year via ceaseless flights, which became famous as the ‘Air Bridge’ or the ‘Berlin Airlift’.
After nearly 60 years of operating as a civilian airport, Tempelhof was shut in 2008 and re-envisioned as a combination of public park, government headquarters and aviation museum.
In the main hall, you can feel the weight of Nazi modernism in the high, straight-lined vaults, even as children play on the defunct luggage belt. Lining the sides are airline booths, their logos still preserved, the classic Avery scales still looking new. Walking out to where the departure gates used to be, you find yourself on a balcony terrace. Below is a classic post-war American Air Force plane, its four turbo-props frozen forever, marking half a century of American military presence in Berlin.
—Ruchir Joshi