20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 2009
Roger-Wilco deals with politics only in as much as it is aero-politics so you may wonder why we would include in our list of anniversaries the fall of the Berlin Wall now 20 years ago on 9 November 1989. As you will see, this momentous event had affected the course of history, the lives of millions and air traffic management itself in ways more than qualifying it for inclusion. But first a little history.
The first cracks
The fall of the Wall actually started some 690 kilometers (383 NM) away on the Western border of Hungary. By early summer in 1989 more than ten
thousand East-German tourists were camping in Budapest and near the Austro-Hungarian border, planning never to return to Erich Honecker’s Germany. It was a sign of the times that a few months earlier the Hungarians and the Austrians held and open-border day (the iron curtain was still more or less in place otherwise) and a number of East-Germans, miraculously aware of what was happening, used this chance to walk over to Austria. In spite of forceful protests from East Germany, in August the Hungarians opened their border and allowed the East-Germans to leave if they wanted to. More then 13000 left in the first mass-exodus of East Germans since the erection of the Wall in 1961.
News spread fast and anti-government mass demonstrations broke out in East-Germany that lasted until November 1989. The hated Erich Honecker resigned on 18 October, 1989.
The Wall crumbles
The new East-German government was drafting a law lifting the travel restrictions. On 9 November 1989 a member of the East-German government was asked at a press conference when the new travel law would come into effect. The guy unwittingly made himself immortal by the following words:
“Well, as far as I can see… straightaway, immediately!”
A few minutes later thousands of East-Germans were at the Bomholmer Strasse border crossing demanding that it be opened. At 10.30 it was with others following soon.
So ended, peacefully but with tears of joy overflowing, the terror of the deadly Wall that divided the people and city of Berlin sine 1961.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was a signal event in the healing of a divided Europe, a process that opened the way for expanding NATO and the European Union. The huge new market, the millions of new consumers and the removal of most restrictions on airspace use in Eastern-Europe opened up hitherto unseen opportunities to airlines and other airspace users.
Scores of airports hitherto “behind the iron curtain” became mainstream almost overnight as their economies switched engines, attracting new business travelers and tourists like never before. Of course alongside the dismantling of the Wall many other changes were required but none had the conceptual and visual appeal of the crumbling Wall.
A few aviation related curiosities
The Berlin TV Tower, the tallest man-made “obstacle” in Europe.
The TV tower now stands on Alexanderplatz but construction originally started on a site in Muggelberg, the South-Eastern part of Berlin. Work was stopped however when they realized that such a tall building at that location would completely disrupt the arrival and departure procedures at the East-German airport of Schonefeld. That the tower would now interfere with the West-Berlin airport Tegel was apparently not something that bothered the East-German authorities at the time.
The Berlin airport system
After WWII, Berlin became a divided city. Only the Russian zone carried the status of capital, that of the German Democratic Republic. The capital of the Federal Republic of Germany was in Bonn. In time, there were three airports serving Berlin. In the East, it was Schonefeld, home of Interflug, the East-German airline. Then there was Tempelhof and Tegel serving the non-Russian sectors of the city. Historic Tempelhof became famous on account of the Berlin Airlift but a lesser known fact is that it was the world’s first airline hub used by Lufthansa upon founding. While the other great cities of Europe developed an airport system that was designed to meet (more or less) the actual travel demand, the Berlin airports were mainly driven by politics and certain military interests. To-day, Tempelhof is gone having been closed down in October 2008. The days of Tegel are also numbered; it is expected to close down in 2012 when Berlin-Brandenburg becomes operational. Brandenburg airport, to be developed from the old Schonefeld, will finally bring Berlin on a par with other important cities in Germany and the rest of Europe.
