The story of this place
Tempelhof's colossal terminal, built by the Nazis in the 1930s as a showcase of monumental architecture, has one of the largest building footprints on Earth, its curved hangar roof designed to shelter arriving aircraft. Its greatest hour came during the Berlin Blockade of 1948–49, when Stalin cut all land routes to West Berlin and the Western Allies supplied the city entirely by air. At the airlift's peak, planes landed at Tempelhof roughly every 90 seconds, delivering coal, food and even a power station in pieces. American pilot Gail Halvorsen, the 'Candy Bomber', dropped sweets on tiny parachutes to Berlin's children. The airport closed in 2008 and its runways are now a vast public park where Berliners cycle and picnic.