40 years ago, construction began at the airport in Erdinger Moos.
It took twelve years before the first plane could take off there.
Because things didn't go smoothly.
Airport - It was a bitingly cold day when the first excavator shovel dug into the Erdinger Moos on November 3, 1980. No groundbreaking or ceremony accompanied the start of construction at Munich Airport 40 years ago. The five planned years of construction ended up being twelve. The largest project in post-war Bavaria to date was also a major construction site for the judiciary.
The decision to build the much larger replacement airport for Riem in Erdinger Moos and not in Hofoldinger Forst near Munich was made on August 5th, 1969.
Almost exactly ten years later, on July 8, 1979, the government of Upper Bavaria issued the planning approval decision.
5724 complaints were received.
To deal with the process, the 17th Chamber of the Munich Administrative Court selected 40 model plaintiffs.
The Federation of Nature Conservation filed a constitutional complaint in Karlsruhe, but failed.
The process began on April 29, 1980, six months later the judges decided: immediate execution of the building permit.
The excavators drove up in the Erdinger Moos.
The first project was extremely unspectacular - a catchment ditch for the groundwater that had to be lowered by one meter.
Flughafen München GmbH set the goal of five years to build.
In 1986 MUC was supposed to start.
But Easter 1981 was not supposed to be a festival of enlightenment for FMG.
On April 16, Maundy Thursday, the 20th Senate of the Bavarian Administrative Court imposed a construction freeze and indicated that the approval could be lifted.
For two reasons: The then Minister of Economic Affairs Anton Jaumann and a senior ministerial officer are said to have participated in the plan approval procedure, although they were also part of the FMG supervisory board - a legally inadmissible combination.
And: The center distance of the two railways is too large at 2300 meters, the entire area with 2050 hectares is oversized.
30 companies and 500 workers were left with nothing.
On May 27, 1981, the 17th Chamber of the Munich Administrative Court again dismissed the action, but ordered a change that still concerns FMG: the third runway had to be canceled.
The judges considered two lanes to be sufficient.
The noise protection also had to be improved.
The client defended himself with a constitutional complaint, but failed.
1500 hectares had to be evaporated.
The FMG applied for an amendment to the planning approval decision.
The government of Upper Bavaria issued the new building permit on June 7, 1984, and one month later FMG applied for the construction freeze to be lifted.
The 20th Senate of the Bavarian Administrative Court approved this on March 8, 1985.
Two weeks later, construction was back in the Erdinger Moos.
After all, not a single square meter had to be expropriated for the new major airport.
FMG received the last 18,690 square meters by means of an exchange agreement with two landowners from Schwaig.
The irony of history: Because construction was delayed considerably here, Riem had to be expanded again.
The first major civil engineering project was the S-Bahn tunnel in autumn 1988.
Shortly before, the construction of the two railways had started, which should be finished by the end of 1989.
Terminal 1, the administration, the central building and the tower were built around this time.
At times, 1300 workers were on the XXL construction site at the same time.
The first topping-out ceremony was celebrated in 1988, that for Terminal 1 on September 11, 1989. It is 1010 meters long.
125,000 cubic meters of concrete and 16,000 tons of steel were used in it.
The official name Munich Airport II - Franz Josef Strauss was established on November 28, 1990.
Only for the representatives of the city of Munich as co-owners, that was too much of the honor for the former state father.
On May 11, 1992, FMG celebrated the inauguration in a Lufthansa maintenance hall with 3000 guests, including Sweden's Queen Silvia.
Just as the airport had been Bavaria's largest construction site until then, the move on the night of May 17th was the largest logistics operation.
5000 helpers and 700 trucks moved the entire airport from Riem to Moos within one night.
The first machine started there at 4 a.m.