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Berlin-Tegel Airport: remembering the most absurd moments

2020-10-31T15:41:32.219Z


In the future there will no longer be such short distances: after 46 years, the lights will go out in the hexagonal Berlin airport terminal on November 8th. Time to remember the most absurd moments.


"Now do something!"

The angry man tossed his briefcase across the terminal.

The plane that was supposed to take him to the next business meeting was already taxiing towards the runway.

"Your name!", He yelled at the supervisor, who couldn't help being late.

But that didn't interest the boss at all.

Totally beside himself, he tore the name tag from her uniform jacket.

"The very last call Tegel!" Is the name of the book in which the sisters Evelyn and Julia Csabai have collected bizarre anecdotes from everyday life at Berlin Airport.

They conducted passenger surveys there for 25 years until they were eventually discontinued.

On November 8th of this year, after 46 years, all the shutters in this airport will finally be lowered.

Tegel Airport closes.

Many passengers always came here at the last minute - because Tegel was an airport with very short distances, designed by Hamburg architects Meinhard von Gerkan and Volkwin Marg. It was their first major project.

Only five years of construction

After five years of construction, the inauguration took place at the end of October 1974, and on November 1st the first plane landed from Tenerife.

In the hexagonal main terminal you could get to the plane from the check-in counter in no time at all.

Taxis and other vehicles could stop right outside the departure gates.

From there it was only 15 meters to the entrance.

One of the Csabai sisters once met an angry Malaysian UN representative who was used to long distances and simply couldn't find her way around.

The CDU politician Hanna-Renate Laurien, President of the Berlin House of Representatives in the nineties, often ran in circles several times before she reached her goal.

Departure and arrival gates were in the immediate vicinity in Tegel.

At first, 14 machines were able to dock around Terminal A, something that wasn't available anywhere else in the world.

As if the architects had suspected that over 20 million passengers would one day be handled in Tegel, they planned a second hexagon.

However, it was never built.

The airport cost 430 million D-Marks, a manageable sum compared to the capital city BER.

But it was also a different time.

Airships and missiles

Before the First World War, airships of the Parseval and Groß-Basenach types had already been tested here.

Later a rocket firing range was built there, where the engineer Wernher von Braun also researched and carried out experiments.

In 1948 a new chapter began.

more on the subject

Post-war aerial photographs: Secretly over Berlin, recorded by Solveig Grothe

When the Soviets blocked all land routes to the western part of the city during the Berlin blockade, the Allies built an airfield on the bombed area in the French sector in just 90 days.

Thousands of female workers also lend a hand.

As at Tempelhof Airport, the legendary raisin bombers landed in Tegel until 1949 to supply the needy population with essential goods via the airlift.

At 2428 meters, the runway was the longest in Europe.

The former SPD district councilor and MP Manfred Omankowsky, who died in 2019, was head of the press office in the Reinickendorf district at the age of just 21.

"The airport was built on a meadow," he recalled in an interview with SPIEGEL Geschichte.

"Two generals from the American Air Force arrived with the very first machine. They wanted to encourage the Berliners back then and signal 'We can do it!'"

In the 1960s, civilian flight operations slowly picked up speed under the control of the Allies.

In addition to Air France, British Airways and American Pan Am were soon allowed to fly to the small airport.

Turbulence at low altitude

While it was already busier in Tempelhof, everyday life in Tegel was initially tranquil.

Initially, a Caravelle from Paris landed only once a day, four times a week a Boeing 707 took off for New York.

In 1968, however, all charter companies moved from the overloaded Tempelhof Airport to Tegel.

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Title: Very last call Tegel !: Memories of the greatest airport in the world

Publisher: be.bra Verlag

Number of pages: 304

Author: Csabai, Evelyn, Csabai, Julia

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The Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich airports could only be reached from West Berlin via three precisely defined air corridors that led across GDR territory.

Since the flight altitude was strictly limited to 3500 meters, the passengers were shaken properly in turbulence.

In GDR times there was even a flight from Tegel via Moscow to Ulan Bator twice a week.

The passengers came from many different countries as this was the only direct connection between Western Europe and Mongolia.

Often there were problems with expired visas.

In addition to cigarettes and plenty of vodka, horse milk was also smuggled.

Fall of the Berlin Wall scenes: "That was like a madhouse!"

Passengers and airport staff watched the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 in front of a few television screens in the restaurants.

"At some point there was an announcement and people were hugging each other in disbelief," recalls a security employee.

"It was like wildfire, the passengers ran to the television or tried to get home quickly. It was like a madhouse, full of emotions!"

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Lufthansa was finally allowed to take off and land in Tegel.

When the four-power status of Berlin was lifted, it took over the previous flight rights of Pan Am.

An employee remembers in "Very last call Tegel!"

to the mood of the time: "It was as if the whole GDR had set out on a collective journey."

Many East Germans flocked to find out about travel offers or to watch the flight operations on the visitor terrace.

"They were really happy to finally be able to ask questions about a trip without appearing suspicious," says Robin, who worked at the Lufthansa ticket counter until 2017.

Cropped crane buttons

The downside: not all Pan-Am employees were taken over by Lufthansa.

Those who were employed by the ground handling company BLAS in the future were demonstratively cut off their uniform buttons with the concise crane symbol.

Shortly afterwards, planning for the future major Berlin-Brandenburg airport began.

In 2006 the first groundbreaking took place near the former GDR airport Schönefeld.

Tegel was no longer to be expanded, but it still had a long operating time ahead of it.

The airport soon became cramped, and more terminals were added to the hexagon.

Air Berlin, founded in the USA in the 1970s, began flight operations in the winter of 1991 after being taken over by entrepreneur Joachim Hunold.

From its base in Tegel, Air Berlin rose to become the second largest German airline before it slipped into bankruptcy in 2017.

Many politicians and celebrities have come to Tegel over the years.

Planespotter filmed the Concorde with which French President François Mitterrand floated in on May 8, 1995 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

In 2000, US President Bill Clinton made his last official visit aboard Air Force One.

Joops Dalmatians and chocolate penises

Julia and Evelyn Csabai can also report all kinds of curiosities from their 25 years at the airport.

The Dalmatian dogs from fashion designer Wolfgang Joop, for example, were always allowed to travel in the cabin.

An unknown woman flew to Rio de Janeiro three times a year with her parrots.

One African attracted attention because he only had left shoes in his luggage.

Overweight sumo wrestlers who wanted to return to Tokyo with their geishas could not go through the gate probes at the security check.

It is not uncommon for considerable sums of cash to remain at the airport, which sometimes were not picked up.

The most unusual find was a wooden leg, which its owner soon missed.

Once even a baby was forgotten on the plane.

The inspectors were also amazed at a bag full of chocolate penises and a vibrator for cow elephants.

One of the most gruesome finds was the skull of a monkey that had been roasted alive in its African homeland.

Once a big green toy frog was checked in as a business passenger for a flight back to Hamburg.

A well-known doctor had let him travel luxuriously to Berlin as his alter ego.

From the Kurfürstendamm, a taxi took him to Tegel in no time.

Anyone arriving by air in the future will have to plan longer distances.

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Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2020-10-31

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