AIRPORT CLOSURE:BERLINERS WERE in tears this week when Tempelhof Airport, the hub of the 1948-49 Berlin Airlift, closed its doors after 81 years in operation.
Tempelhof opened in 1926 and a monumental terminal was built by the Nazis 10 years later as a majestic portal to the Third Reich's capital. More than 1.4km long, Tempelhof Airport competes with the Pentagon for the title of world's largest building, with floor space equivalent to 43 football pitches, and is just four kilometres from the Brandenburg Gate.
Berliner Horst Pillau (76) said he was upset to see the airport close as he owed his life to it. "Like the rest of the city, my family was kept going on supplies flown into the airport during the 1948 Soviet blockade of West Berlin."
The current airport dates from 1934 when the man signing off on the plans was one Adolf Hitler. He demanded a structure so grand that it would "silence every snide remark about Germany".
When the city was taken by the Allies, the half-finished airport fell into the American sector, a fact that three years later would prove a fortuitous twist of fate.
When the Soviets blocked all road access to Berlin on June 21st, 1948, the US airforce supplied two million people by air with 2.3 million tonnes of food, fuel, medication and even sweets for children.
It was appropriate then, that the last two aircraft that took off from Berlin's inner-city airport were two original airlift planes.
City officials forced the closure of Tempelhof because its continued use as an airport could put in doubt the legal basis of a new airport, Berlin Brandenburg International (BBI), which is being built next to Schönefeld Airport outside the city.
The decision was highly unpopular. A recent poll showed 74 per cent in favour of saving Tempelhof - but a referendum held earlier this year to save the airport failed when not enough people turned out to vote.
There are no definite plans for the building's future.