Over time, East Berlin and West Berlin developed their separate airports. Besides Tempelhof, Tegel grew in the former French sector. With reunification, it was decided to mothball both Tegel and Tempelhof and consolidate the city’s air traffic at a single site, Schönefeld. Tempelhof’s landmark building would be preserved for some use yet to be determined  a museum, offices (nothing was definite, in typical Berlin fashion). The goal was to attract more intercontinental flights and make Berlin more attractive to businesses. Both main political parties, the conservative Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, signed off on it.

Then delay followed delay in the way things do here. What a glorious city Berlin is, and what a mess. It is bankrupt and underpopulated. Big companies like Sony, Samsung and Mercedes, enticed after reunification by subsidies intended to boost business, took advantage of the offers then skipped town.

Image Berlin plans to move all flights to Schönefeld, south of town. Credit... The New York Times

There’s no city plan worthy of a great capital, partly because of old, festering rivalries. Years ago it was decided to demolish the Palace of the Republic, a 1970s bronzed glass-and-steel behemoth at the center of the old East Berlin. West Berliners saw it as an eyesore that housed the loathed East German parliament.

East Berliners recalled it affectionately, because its clutch of theaters and bowling alleys and restaurants were where they could escape the drudgery of Communist life. It’s now to be replaced with a fake Baroque palace, a copy of the Hohenzollern schloss formerly on that site, which was bombed, then razed by the Communists  a forthcoming Potemkin village and a sad excuse for a showpiece in a city that prides itself on its cultural sophistication. Fortunately, Berlin is now too broke to finish demolition, which has already taken longer and cost more than the building did to put up.

As for Tempelhof, the city’s popular mayor, Klaus Wowereit, led the push to shut it immediately and not wait for Schönefeld’s expansion. This partly explains why Conservative opponents in town changed course and vigorously campaigned to save it. They rallied nostalgic West Berliners. The conservative Springer newspapers joined in. So did Chancellor Angela Merkel. America, with its shaky standing, became a subtle undercurrent in the debate.