Without this Airport, Berlin wouldn’t exist today!
This Sunday we have the chance to show our mayor and his left-wing coalition what we want. This is living democracy. And we want that Tempelhof Central Airport stays open. But if he tries to ignore us, like he said, it would be better for him to leave this city, and that VERY FAST! I guess you know by now that I support Tempelhof. And that not only because the historical reasons.
I have read the stupid plans and calculations the Berlin Senate has made since the last years. In their plans the new BBI airport would easily take all the traffic(their prognoses are from the 90th) until at least 2025, but a new one, which was made by the Industry and Trading Organization, shows up that the BBI will be on it’s capacity limit between 2011(then is the big opening, if they work fast enough) and 2014. And what’s than? You can’t make it bigger, there is no way. And if Tempelhof will be closed, you never can open it again.
But there is an Investor, Ronald S.Lauder, who wants to spend 350 Million € in Tempelhof, but only if it stays open. And he and his partners(DB and Siemens) have a quite good concept for it.
Even the New York Times writes about it:
BERLIN (AP) — Berlin’s Tempelhof airport has had a special connection with the city’s people since it opened in 1923.
It is best known as the hub of the Berlin Airlift, supplying residents with food and fuel for nearly a year during a Soviet blockade after World War II.
A few years before, during the war, fighter planes had scrambled from its runways in desperate attempts to protect the capital from Allied bombers.
And its first flights connected Berliners with East Prussia, separated from the rest of Germany after World War I.
Now, with closure threatened this year, Tempelhof supporters are hoping Berliners will rally to save the airport in the city’s first-ever referendum on Sunday.
Backers — supported by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats — are appealing to Berliners’ emotions. Placards have urged them to ”listen to your heart — not to the mayor” and have proclaimed that ”all power comes from the people.”
”The further operation of Tempelhof is not only of significance for the economy and jobs,” Merkel told Berlin’s B.Z. daily last week. ”The airport is for many, and for me personally, a symbol with the airlift of the history of this city.”
Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, who heads a left-wing coalition that includes ex-communists, has said he will ignore the outcome of the nonbinding referendum and move ahead with plans to close the airport.
He accused the chancellor of ”damaging the city by supporting a backward-looking campaign.”
Tempelhof can accommodate 1.5 million passengers, but actual traffic in 2007 was 350,000 — a tiny fraction of the 20 million total for all three of Berlin’s airports.
The closure — along with that of Tegel airport — is part of a plan to concentrate flights at a new hub just outside the city to be created by expanding the former East Berlin’s Schoenefeld airport.
Schoenefeld supporters say it will establish Berlin as a major international flight center and create thousands of jobs.
No one seems quite sure what to do with Tempelhof once it is closed. Ideas include converting it to parkland or building luxury apartments. The terminal itself is protected as a historical landmark, and suggestions include trying to rent out its 9,000 offices and turning it into a museum.
Those who want to save centrally located Tempelhof point out that cities like London have city airports, which are popular with business flyers. They also maintain that more airlines would use the airport if its future were not uncertain.
Opened in 1923 in the heart of Berlin, Tempelhof initially comprised an administration building and a pair hangars, all made from wood and little else.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Hitler decided to make it an ”air stadium” — not only a major European hub but a symbol of Germany’s might, transforming it into a monolith with massive stone blocks and pillars.
After the war, Tempelhof fell into the American sector of the divided city and became a major U.S. Air Force base.
As such, when the Soviets blockaded all land and water traffic to Berlin in an attempt to squeeze the allies out of the city in 1948, Tempelhof was central to the massive U.S.-led airlift.
In one of the most significant Cold War confrontations, the western allies flew some 280,000 flights keeping the 2 million citizens of Berlin supplied with fuel and food until the Soviets backed down 11 months later.
Though the Air Force pulled out of Tempelhof in 1993, after German reunification, the building still sports features from the U.S. era, including an indoor basketball court complete with a ”Berlin Braves — USAF” logo.
An April 11-16 poll by the Infratest dimap agency for the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper of 2,500 Berliners who planned to vote showed 61 percent support for keeping Tempelhof open. For the vote to be valid, at least a quarter of Berlin’s registered voters — 611,000 people — must cast their ballot. No margin of error was given.
”It would be a shame if there were no longer an airport here,” said Thomas Merz, who operated the radar tower before retiring in 2004, and now shows visitors around the building. ”It is living history — I guess we’ll have to see.”
