Citizen participation | Tailwind for an open Tempelhof field

Spending free time on Tempelhofer Feld is something that local residents and people who come from further away love. Photo: dpa/Sebastian Gollnow Fly kites, endurance run, roller skating or cycling, grill and chill out. All of this and much more is possible on the extensive site of the former Berlin-Tempelhof airport in the middle of the city - but not building apartments and the like. This is what the people of Berlin decided in a referendum in May 2014. 64.3 percent of voters agreed to the 100 percent Tempelhofer Feld initiative.

Since 2016, a field coordinator has been supporting the subsequent use of the site for leisure and culture and also taking care of nature conservation. The area is a habitat for numerous protected animal and plant species. The field coordination is made up of representatives from the Senate Environmental Administration, the state-owned Grün Berlin GmbH and elected volunteers. This week the field coordination in Munich received one of the special prizes at the Hans Sauer Prize ceremony. This year, initiatives were honored that appropriated, reinterpreted and designed spaces in a community-oriented manner. 334 proposals have been submitted. A jury led by architecture professor Gabu Heindl awarded five prizes and five special prizes.

For example, Spotlight Gelsenkirchen, Correctiv's first editorial café, the House of Democracy in the Hessian district of Kassel and the Vollgut cooperative, which is reactivating the cellar and vehicle hall of the old Kindl brewery in Berlin-Neukölln, were honored. But also a self-organized housing and cultural project in Fürstenwalde, Brandenburg, and the Tempelhof field coordination.

“This award confirms what we have been saying for years: Tempelhofer Feld is not just an open space, it is a place where the people of Berlin decide together what their city looks like,” says Mareike Witt from the 100 percent Tempelhofer Feld initiative. The field coordination shows “that real participation is not an obstacle to urban development, but rather its core.”

"After years of hard fighting for Tempelhofer Feld, this recognition is a strong signal."

The elected field coordinator Josefine Fokdal adds: »After years of hard fighting for the Tempelhof field, this recognition is a strong signal. Now there is the chance to strengthen and further develop field coordination instead of having to defend it again and again. The award goes to everyone who is committed to the Tempelhof field. The special prize also shows that this area “belongs to the people who use and design it.”

Berlin's Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) and his coalition with the SPD, which was voted out on September 20th, had tried to achieve development on the edge of the open space, regardless of the referendum to the contrary.

The coalition negotiations between the Left, the Greens and the SPD have not yet begun. The SPD state executive board and the state committee of the Greens have already decided to start negotiations. But the blessing of a state party conference of the Left is still missing. The party conference will not take place until October 31st. But the three parties had already agreed on the wording during their exploratory discussions: “We are sticking to the character of Tempelhofer Feld and ruling out any development on the edge.”

The airport was closed in October 2008. The construction of the new capital city airport BER in Schönefeld began in 2006. Its opening was then postponed from the originally planned date in 2011 to the end of October 2020. The last jet aircraft was a Boeing 737 from Air Berlin that took off from Tempelhof on October 30, 2008 at 10:12 p.m. She landed in Berlin-Tegel 22 minutes later. The last scheduled flight was a Dornier 328 propeller plane that took off for Mannheim at 10:17 p.m. Finally, at 11:55 p.m., a DC-3 and a Ju-52 took off from both runways in parallel.

DC-3 aircraft became known as so-called raisin bombers because they supplied West Berlin from the air from June 1948 to September 1949 when Soviet troops blocked the land routes. The Airlift Memorial at the old Tempelhof Airport, inaugurated in 1951, is a reminder of this. With the launch of the DC-3 and the Ju-52 on October 30, 2008, the history of aviation in Tempelhof was supposed to end. But in June 2010 there was an emergency landing by a pilot who had to struggle with a loss of engine power during a sightseeing flight over Berlin.

The Hans Sauer Prize is awarded by the foundation of the inventor Hans Sauer, who died in 1996. Born in 1923, the son of a farmer began developing relays as an engineer at Siemens in 1950. His first patent application was for an electronic clock with a display made of neon lights. Sauer has more than 300 patents worldwide for relays that were significantly smaller and more efficient and cheaper to produce. In 1962 he set up his own company, SDS Elektro. In 1989, Hans Sauer sold his company to the Matsushita Group and founded the Hans Sauer Foundation with the purpose of promoting creativity and innovation.

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