For the first time since 1998, motorsport is coming back to Germany’s capital Berlin. Last time sports cars were racing in Berlin it was on the former Formula One and DTM track “AVUS”, a motorway today, now Formula E comes to the biggest town in Germany. The Tempelhof Airport has even more history than the AVUS circuit, reason enough for us to take a look at the history of the place, where the Berlin ePrix will start on May 23rd.

The Tempelhof Airport has a wealth of history, as pioneers wrote chapters of aviation history here with the Berlin Airlift. Allied aircrafts gave Tempelhof a leading role in Cold War mythology, turning the airport into an internationally known symbol of the defence of freedom.

At first, the airport was a training ground for the Prussian soldiers of Frederick William I. and Frederick the Great in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1909, the first aeroplane took off from the new runway when Frenchman Arman Zipfel showed off his Voisin-1907 biplane. The same aeroplane set the world record for the first one-kilometre flight just two years before. In September 1909, Orville Wright the inventor of the aeroplane also demonstrated his skills, setting up a world record for the highest flight at that time (172 meters) and the longest passenger flight (1:35 hours). In 1923, Tempelhof was one of the first German airports that started flying commercial flights.

The airport grew over the years, reception halls and offices were included in the building, until the Nazi regime commissioned Ernst Sagebiel to draw a plan for a completely new building, which was made between 1936 and 1941. Since then the building has barely changed. The unique airport is one of the largest architectural monuments in Europe and exemplifies the monumental self-aggrandizement of the national socialists, but is also a symbol of freedom because of the Berlin Air Lift between 1948 and 1949.

The broader public has largely forgotten that the National Socialists established Berlin’s only official SS concentration camp on the grounds of this former airport. The site was critical to the WWII efforts, with forced labourers from German-occupied countries put to work building and servicing combat aircrafts.

The Tempelhof Airport is the only worldwide airport with check-in-counters and administrative offices in one huge building. The curved hangar building is over 1230 metres long. Although the airport is not even finished yet – Thirteen stairwells are only structurally complete because of the workers were taken off the site due to the start of World War Two. The natural stone covers make the airport look overpowered on the town-facing side of the hangar building, while the airfield with its steel constructions and a 40-metre-wide supporting structure covering the 380 metre long gate makes it look very modern.

This resulted in a unification of the western allies (United Kingdom, France and the USA, who were now delivering supplies into the enclaved Berlin. The support reached its peak in April 1949, with 12,849 tons of freight and 1,398 flights in just 24 hours. They created a fast flowing system that allowed planes to land within 3 minutes of each other. The freight contained corn, wrapped food, fuel, medicine and mainly coal as fuel for the need of energy in the city. On 12 May 1949 the Soviets finally lifted its embargo and the Tempelhof Airport could be used as a public airport again two years later.

In 1962, the main hall of the airport building was re-designed and looks the same today. With the aviation growing and improving the airport, soon was too small for the bigger aeroplanes. The biggest machine landing on the runway was an Airbus A330-200. Nevertheless, the airport was used until 2008, when the last small airplane safely landed on the landing strip of Tempelhof.

Since then the field has been open to the public. The old airport is used as a place attracting hundreds and thousands of students and Berliners daily. People skate on the long runways or just relax on the grass. In the summer, people grill in special areas there or go kite-flying. They ride their bikes or rent a Segway to have fun with. The former airport with a long history has been transformed into a park in the city centre. On 23 May this year another big event will take place on the concrete of Tempelhof, when Formula E arrives in the capital of Berlin.