Tempelhof Airport
node · earth
The airport inside the American sector of Berlin that carried the largest share of the airlift of 1948–49, and an unusually literal illustration of what the blockade was. Tempelhof sits close to the centre of the city, hemmed in by apartment blocks, with a vast curved terminal building of the 1930s whose canopy allowed aircraft to be unloaded under cover; approaches were made over the rooftops on a tightly disciplined pattern in which aircraft landed at fixed intervals and any pilot who missed an approach returned to base with his load rather than circling, because circling would have collapsed the timetable. The airlift as a whole used three twenty-mile-wide air corridors agreed in 1945 between Berlin and the western zones, and Tempelhof, Gatow in the British sector and Tegel — built in the French sector during the operation itself — were its destinations. The airport closed to traffic in 2008 and the airfield is now a public open space.
Read in · 1
Evidence · 1
Timeline
No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.
Connections · 1
- Berlinlocated_in
Assembled narrative · 1
Assembled from 20 blocks · 1 evidence · 14 related
- Story
- The airport inside the American sector of Berlin that carried the largest share of the airlift of 1948–49, and an unusually literal illustration of what the blockade was. Tempelhof sits close to the centre of the city, hemmed in by apartment blocks, with a vast curved terminal building of the 1930s whose canopy allowed aircraft to be unloaded under cover; approaches were made over the rooftops on a tightly disciplined pattern in which aircraft landed at fixed intervals and any pilot who missed an approach returned to base with his load rather than circling, because circling would have collapsed the timetable. The airlift as a whole used three twenty-mile-wide air corridors agreed in 1945 between Berlin and the western zones, and Tempelhof, Gatow in the British sector and Tegel — built in the French sector during the operation itself — were its destinations. The airport closed to traffic in 2008 and the airfield is now a public open space.
- Knowledge
- Tempelhof Airport
- Berlin
- Connections
- Berlin
- The Berlin blockade and airlift
- The Berlin Wall
- Tempelhof Airport
- The Berlin blockade and airlift
- The Berlin sector border is sealed
- American and Soviet tanks face each other on Friedrichstrasse
- The Berlin Wall opens
- Berlin Marathon
- The first Berlin Marathon, in the Grunewald
- Berlin moves its marathon into the city
- The Berlin Marathon runs through the Brandenburg Gate
- Evidence
- Named as the source class for the conduct of the airlift — the three agreed air corridors, the fixed-interval approach discipline and the airfields used. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted. No tonnage, sortie count or casualty figure from the airlift is quoted anywhere in this pack, precisely because none could be checked.
Observed changes · 0
No public Signals are attached to this object. Signals show what changed and when it was observed — never a direction or a rank.
Actions
/atlas?object=SITE_TEMPELHOF&experience=SITE_TEMPELHOF