Tempelhof - Airport Interior

(Tempelhof Airport - part 1 here)

While planning the airport in the thirties, everybody knew it had to be big. Colossal was the motto, Germania, the lunatic Nazi vision of future Berlin incorporated an airport that should´ve handled up to six million passengers per year. All air traffic related institutions, both civilian and military, would´ve been housed in the complex. The building as well as the airfield should have had the capacity for crowds of people that should´ve come in awe to witness National Air Show Days and other propagandistic mass events. For these reasons the airport building has an array of tunnels, staircases and secret passages which were part of an immense infrastructure behind the scenes. Many of these are of no further use today. Just useless space that´s about good enough for movie scenes that are shot here every once in a while.

A photogenic staircase

          While some parts, which were used after the war,

          had been renovated to the standardized

          50s-German-Bureaucratic-Temple look...

                ...other parts were left to negligence.

Many interior parts of the building were never even finished during the Nazi-era.

This is originally a part of the main terminal entrance area, which actually is beneath this supplementary

floor/ceiling construction. It was so high that this inserted ceiling was added to create an extra room

on top. However, the room never found its final purpose.

Deep beneath all other used and non-used space lie the air raid shelters. No doubt aware of a near future

scenario, the architects planned ahead. In order to keep spirits up in the womb of darkness, rhymes of

German humorist poet Wilhelm Busch were written on the walls.

Whatever hardware this is, it regulated something interesting.

Stairs and halls that are rarely trodden upon.

More to follow.

Tempelhof Gallery