Next stop: Berlin Tempelhof

How did people travel in Europe in the 1920s ? Cars were not that common, and I don’t think buses were usual either, at least for long distance transport. I think people travelled mostly by train. And I know for a fact that airplane fares were very expensive, so that only well to do people used it. Still, this post will deal with air transport in Germany and Europe in general.

Deutsche Luft Hansa (DLH) was founded in 1926 in Berlin. The name of the company was a composite of "Deutsche Luft" ("German Air" in German), and "Hansa" (after the Hanseatic League, a mediaeval trading league). The foundation had been made possible by the lifting of restrictions on air operations imposed on Germany by the Peace Treaty after World War I. The route network expanded quickly to cover major European cities.

Berlin-Tempelhof

The most important airport for DLH was Berlin Tempelhof. From there a Fokker F.II took off on 6 April 1926 for the first scheduled flight to Zürich via Halle, Erfurt and Stuttgart. In the same year, Deutsche Luft Hansa launched non-stop flights from Berlin to Moscow, an exceptionally long distance for that time. Shortly after that, flights to Paris were commenced. Deutsche Luft Hansa was one of the first airlines to operate night flights, the first of which connected Berlin with Königsberg (in Eastern Germany) using Junkers G 24 aircraft.

Around 1930, it took 4 1/2 hours to fly from Paris to Berlin and more than 6 hours from Paris to Rome. Flight autonomy was scarce compared with now. The Paris-Berlin flight, for instance, had a stop in Cologne. Belgian Sabena Cologne-Copenhagen with stops at Essen and Hamburg.

Another reason for the many stops was the fact that airplanes transported not only passengers but also mail.

Politically, the leaders of the Luft Hansa were closely related to the Nazi Party; an aircraft was made available to Hitler, free of charge, for his campaign for the 1932 presidential election. Erhard Milch, who had served as head of the airline since 1926, became a high-ranking official at the Aviation Ministry when Hitler came to power in 1933, despite being partly a Jew.

Tempelhof was one of Europe's three iconic pre-World War II airports, the others being London's now defunct Croydon Airport and the old Paris – Le Bourget Airport. It acquired a further iconic status as the centre of the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. It closed all operations on 30 October 2008, despite protests from the public.