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Talk:Volga Germans

[Untitled]
This is barely English, poorly organized, and I have a bad feeling about it. It's reminiscent of User:H.J.. Vicki Rosenzweig 21:50 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Yes, it could be better written, but from the history, people from 2 different IP addresses (clearly not from the same subnet) editted it before I touched it. (And for one of them, English not her/his first language.) And from my knowledge of Russian history, it appears to be accurate so far -- it's clearly a stub.

 * If you'd like, Vicki, I'll add it to my watch list & help it along. I'm willing to take the risk that this won't become another point of bitterness here on WikiP. -- llywrch 03:45 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The Article Germans from Russia which is about an American ethnic group has been redirected here, truncated and merged. I think it should go back to being an independent article. The story of the Volga Germans, is also very interesting and can be substantially expanded, but is really a different story as the division between the two groups generally occured before the Revolution. The only contact most Americans of German-Russian heritage ever had was an occasional pitiful letter from distant relatives. Fred Bauder 15:59, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * I second that. Let's start from the separation within the current article first. Mikkalai 16:52, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have created a stub German-Russian for information on people of German ethnic background who have adopted Russian culture such as Lenin or Vilyam Genrikovich Fisher.

--- My sources are people I "interviewed" - my parents and grandparents OGT

Volga-germanism of most of thse people is not verifiable in wikipedia. NOt to say what Catherine the Great is doing here.

 * Descendants of Germans from Russia include John Denver, Lawrence Welk, Angie Dickinson, Steven Dietz, Dawna Friesen, Jeff Friesen, Robyn Regehr, Matt Groening, Chris Isaak, Jesse M. Unruh, Tom Daschle, Roy Romer, Cheryl Ladd, and Sergio Denis.

John Hessler ,John Klein, Leroy Lehr. Adolph Lesser, Svyatoslav Richter, George Henry Sauer, Nancy Jones Schaefer, Willard Schmidt, Alfred Schnittke, Ron Schuele, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Benjamin F. Brack, Oscar Brosz, Al Duerr, Merle Freitag, Charles Gemar, Jim Geringer, Count Hans Moritz Haucke, Richard Hieb, Robert W. Hirsch, Joseph Kessler, Otto Krueger, Roland Kunfeld, Count Fyodor Petrovich Litke, Reuben Metter, David J. Miller, Allen Neuharth, Toby Roth, Harvey Wollman, Dr. George P. Epp, and Rudy Wiebe
 * Public persons some not quite so famous include Catherine the Great, Les Dudek,

I suspect these lists were simply copied from some webpages. Many of the persons are probably not famous. You cannot just trow a bunch of names into an encyclopedia without saying a word about them, unless the name is of world fame. But in the last case at least a stub is reasonably to expect. Please clean this up. Mikkalai 20:50, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Personal observation only, but according to my dad (first generation German-Russian American), Lawrence Welk is indeed a German Russian (grew up in the same area in ND as my dad and is a distant cousin, apparently) and so is Tom Daschle. I'm sure this can be found out with a quick Google--I'm too lazy to do it right now. Katr67 22:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Serious historical error in this article
A portion of this article has significant error in it.

First, the Black Sea Germans would not like to be associated in name with the Volga Germans. Their primary migration to that region occurred after 1800 and was not influenced in any way by Catherine who died in 1796. The migration was separate and distinct from that of the Volga Germans and occurred under different circumstances.

Second, Catherine the Great's Manifestos applied to all Europeans, not just Germans. Germans happened to respond in greatest numbers due to conditions in regions where they lived. Some Russian Germans make much of the fact that she was German herself but this in no way had anything to do with their migration to the Volga River region.

Third, based on the above, Germans had no special privileges in Russia that did not also apply to other ethnic groups that migrated under the Manifesto terms.

Sources: Human Capital by Roger Bartlett;  From Catherine to Kruschev by Adam Giesinger

I have therefore modified the article to incorporate this information.

Jerry Frank  FranklySpeaking_at_shaw.ca —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.89.225.107 (talk • contribs)

"Health Consequences"
There was information pasted into the article directly from this source:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3345066&dopt=Abstract

It is possible it might fit into the article if it were properly paraphrased and wikified. Katr67 21:59, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Proper redirect of Germans from Russia?
This may be another form of the issue raised by FranklySpeaking, but I do not think that the redirect of Germans from Russia to this article properly belongs here. The Germans who settled in the Beresan (near Odessa) certainly are not Volga Germans. Agent 86 03:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thinking of it for another minute, and then noticing that the redirect was set up in 2004, I decided to be bold and change the redirect to a more suitable article, History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union. Not the best, but better than to this article. Agent 86 03:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Germans from Russia and Volga Germans should stay separate articles. The Russian Mennonites for example are something like Germans from Russia, but only about 1 percent of them used to live in the Volga area.--Wikipeeta (talk) 23:48, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Some Argentines of Volga German descent
In Argentina, Volga Germans had settled in colonies, in some specific provinces, wich are mentioned in Spanish version. Therefore, it is not so difficult to identify who is of Volga German descent. Here there are some of them (it's not a complete list):

Andrés Klipphan (journalist), Jorge Gottau (creator of "Colecta Más por Menos", bishop of Añatuya), Gabriel Heinze (soccer player, currently in Manchester United), Enrique Fischer (better known as Pipo Pescador, houmorist, actor), Héctor Omar Hoffmann (better known as Sergio Denis, singer, actor), Raúl Daniel Schmidt (soccer player, Club Olimpo), Claudio Fernando Graf (soccer player, Club Atlético Lanús), Enrique Rau (bishop, well known for his humanitarian labour), Naty Hollmann (also known as Naty Petrosino, elected "International Woman of the Year"- 2006- by the Autonomous Region of Valle d'Aosta in Northern Italy), Carlos Kaspar (actor), Alejandro Guinder (lawyer, founder of "Festival del Folklore de Cosquín"), Juan Eduardo Esnáider (soccer player), Cristian Breitenstein (mayor of Bahía Blanca), Jorge Novak (founder of "Movimiento Ecuménico por los Derechos Humanos"), Víctor "Vity" Zwenger (soccer player), Javier Herrlein (musician, former member of group Catupecu Machu), Mauro Gerk (soccer player), Jorge Mayer (bishop of Bahía Blanca), Romina Mohr (journalist, Canal 9).--Chipppy 03:08, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Merger with Germans from Russia
The Germans in Bessarabia and in Odessa Oblast were not Volga Germans and it is hard to see how information about them belongs in an article with this title. Is there an article Black Sea Germans? User:Fred Bauder Talk 17:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Photo of Gateway Theatre/Copernicus Center is irrelevant
It may be true that there were Volga Germans who resettled in the Jefferson Park neighborhood of Chicago, but I see no reason for why the photograph of the current Copernicus Cultural and Civic Center be shown in this article. The building was originally constructed as a movie theatre in 1930 by an American firm. It later was turned into the Copernicus Center, which is in honor of the Polish community that has a very large influence and presence in the Jefferson Park neighborhood.

The building has absolutely nothing to do with Germans, whether they were from Volga or anywhere else, and including it without an explanation in this article is misleading. If someone was to select a photograph to represent the Jefferson Park neighborhood, I would suggest choosing one of the Jefferson Park Branch of the Chicago Public Library, or of the actual Jefferson Park. Although the Copernicus Center is a prominent landmark in Chicago, it just simply has nothing to do with the Volga Germans, and should be removed from this article, in my opinion. --Saukkomies talk 02:00, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

text misleading inconclusive and philosoviet
Deutsch speaking migrants were not settled in Russia but in territories conquered by Russian imperialism, i.e. that didn't have any native Russian population or Ukrainians. Thereby, they were the first to urbanize and develop territories, something that is not criticized when done by Anglos, and Zionist even have birthrights in Western culture. They were used by Russians to conquer Muslim territories in the grasslands of southeast Siberia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.149.128.119 (talk) 18:37, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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Use of term genocide
Right now the way that the word genocide is used in the article ("leading to genocide" without much elaboration on what that entailed, why it should be categorized as a genocide, what the secondary literature has to say about this) is rather lacking. It would be ideal if someone familiar with the history of the deportation of the Volga Germans and other minorities in the USSR could work on this article. Also, academic sources should be used exclusively for these kinds of claims, not websites run by associations of Volga Germans (unless the claim is "Volga German organizations have referred to this as a genocide"). Revolution Saga (talk) 04:11, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I have removed it because it is really pushing a POV using sources that are not good enough for the claim. The main article is population transfer in the Soviet Union and there is no consensus on the genocide label for that. Some argue deportations of Chechens, Crimean Tatars etc were genocidal but it is not NPOV to state in wikivoice that the deportation of Germans was a genocide. A similar topic is flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950). Mellk (talk) 13:23, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * And none of the sources are reliable. Moscow's Final Solution by D Philipp Kaiser? And who is Samuel D. Sinner? It is basically self-published sources. Mellk (talk) 13:37, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Samuel Dean Sinner (Zinner) is a PhD German Historian with expertise in holocaust and genocide studies.
 * Genocide is intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. There is no doubt the destruction to ethnic minorities occurred in the USSR, including the ethnically German. To say historians debate whether or not ethnic cleansing is genocide is probably appropriate, but to state that it is Volga German organizations who collectively refer to these events as genocide is patently false. The debate is over whether or not Stalin's ethnic cleansing led intentionally to destruction of the USSR's ethnic minorities. They were executed under false pretenses and deported into famine and unsanitary conditions, and for many of the men, forced labor camps, all of which resulted in massive casualties. To cut this out entirely when it is well-documented seems like unintentional whitewashing.
 * - @Mellk
 * Who argues that ethnic-German Russians are not included in this group? The literature overwhelmingly groups all of the ethnic minorities of USSR together.
 * - (Encyclopedia of Ukraine / The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian studies, The Shevchenko Scientific Society (Sarcelles, France), The Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian studies. - Toronto : University of Toronto press, 1985 . Vol. 5 : St - Z / ed. D. H. Struk. - 1993. - 886 p.: ill. - ISBN 0-8020-3995-2 (v.5))
 * - Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (textbook)
 * Collective sources on these issues:                  166.198.252.137 (talk) 18:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe the views can be mentioned but just like Allied bombing of German and Japanese cities, calling it genocide in wikivoice does not follow WP:NPOV. Although those articles don't mention any genocide claims. Only Bombing of Dresden in World War II mention it (that quote specifically) but there is a whole section on debate. Mellk (talk) 07:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I think we agree. 166.198.252.18 (talk) 23:18, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I think we agree. 166.198.252.18 (talk) 23:18, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Vandal editions by user Mellk
There is no doubt that it was a genocide what was done against Volga Germans and Germans from the rest of Russia (also known as Russia Germans). And it is a gross and outrageous violation of Wikipedia rules that all those references continue to be vandalized by the Russian user Mellk (see, for example, here and here), who already has a history of vandalizing references and creating disputes on Wikipedia after editing many articles with an ideological bias in favor of the crimes carried out by Russia.

User Mellk has been vandalizing all the references in this article, but also in Russia Germans (see, for example, here), Saratov (look how he removes the word "genocide", which is abundantly sourced, under the false accusation that such information would be an "unsourced commentary" here, then he continues "pruning" with the conscious objective of hiding the sourced information here, the Russian government forbids talk about genocide, but he hides that information against WP:COMMONSENSE here, the Russian user is not satisfied and finally removes all references in that article as well, which of course is vandalism, here) and others, in which he simply removes all the information and references that he doesn't like.

Therefore, the phenomenon of this vandalism must be treated as a whole, since it is being carried out by the same user and in more than one article that addresses the same dark chapter in history.

Genocide and the application of logical reasoning
To say that precisely the version of scholars and experts in the history of Volga Germans and Germans from the rest of Russia is not reliable (as said user writes every time he vandalizes the references), would be like saying that to learn about the genocide of Jews you should not consult any source provided by the Jewish community, but only read the version that the Nazis admit.

It is precisely the organizations that represent the victims that have an interest in denouncing what has been done to them, while the perpetrators have an interest in hiding it. This is completely obvious and logical.

In any case, for a person to join this interest in covering up such a crime, the only thing it reveals is their ideological affinity. And also their moral quality.

Applying the criteria of the Russian user Mellk, who says that the information and testimonies provided by the organizations that gather the victims and relatives of victims of genocides is not reliable, for example, we should say that a victim of a robbery cannot report the crime to the police, since it is the thief himself who should determine if he stole or not. As you can see, this reveals a deeply cynical way of seeing reality... Or as cynical as it is interested. In any case, of course, it is the most unethical thing imaginable.

To say that ethnic Germans were decimated, deported, enslaved, that they were forbidden to speak their own language, that they were forbidden to be educated in their own language, that many had to emigrate en masse to save themselves and that so many others were killed, that today the survivors and their descendants live scattered all over the world as a result of that, but that that is not genocide, it is as absurd as describing a robbery avoiding saying the word "robbery"... For example, someone admits that a man entered someone else's home, that he took money that did not belong to him, that he did so by threatening the resident family with a firearm, but: he refuses to use the word "robbery"... Completely absurd, right? Or interested and cynical...

The genocide of Germans from Russia has been very well documented by experts from various countries who call it for what it was: a genocide.

Therefore, it is completely false to say that there is a "debate" about that term, just as the Russian user says in his vandal editions.

All the experts on the subject call it genocide, and even many books about the genocide of Germans from Russia have been written. The only one that does not call it genocide is Russia, something that is not surprising, since in the same way, Russia goes to the extreme of denying absolutely all the genocides that it carried out. But denying all these genocides seems to be one more way of provoking the victims, of re-victimizing them, of showing that an attitude can never be unabashed enough, that someone can always redouble the bet and be even more evil.

References to the genocide of Volga Germans and Germans from the rest of Russia
It is also false to imply that the only book that has been written on the genocide of Volga Germans and Germans from the rest of Russia is Kaiser, D. Philipp (2014). Moscow's Final Solution: The Genocide of the German-Russian Volga Colonies. ISBN 9780615157801, as implied by the Russian user Mellk, who does not mention the rest of the references that he vandalized.

Many other books and other studies have been published calling the genocide of Germans from Russia for what it was: a genocide. For example:

Sinner, Samuel D. (2000). The Open Wound: The deportation of West German Ethnic Minorities in Russia & the Soviet Union, 1915-1949 - And Beyond. ISBN 1891193082.

Also: Maier Schwerdt, Héctor (2009). Deportación a Siberia: el genocidio de los alemanes del Volga; memoria de la supresión de la República Germana del Volga en Rusia y de la deportación a Siberia de todos sus habitantes, el 28 de agosto de 1941. ISBN 9789870565536.

Also: Conquest, Robert (1974). Stalins Völkermord: Wolgadeutsche, Krimtataren, Kaukasier. ISBN 3203504855

The Journal of Genocide Research also considers the genocide of the Germans in Russia for what it was: a genocide. Examples:

Pohl, J. Otto (1 June 2000). Stalin's genocide against the "Repressed Peoples. Journal of Genocide Research. 2 (2): 267–293. doi:10.1080/713677598

Eric J. Schmaltz and Samuel D. Sinner. 'You Will Die under Ruins and Snow': The Soviet Repression of Russian Germans as a Case Study of Successful Genocide, Journal of Genocide Research (2002), 4 (3), pp. 327-356.

On the other hand, the website volgagermans.org, initially created in 2009 by Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, also calls the genocide of Germans from Russia for what it was: a genocide. See: https://www.volgagermans.org/history/genocide

In Argentina, each town also remembers the genocide of Germans from Russia, even with the presence of its mayor (See, for example, Act for the 80th anniversary of the deportation and extermination of Germans in Siberia and other regions of the USSR). It is totally absurd that the Russian user wants to make all this look like an international whim.

As you can see, the reason why absolutely all experts in the history of Volga Germans and Germans from the rest of Russia agree that what was done to Germans from Russia was genocide leaves no room for doubt: because it was indeed genocide.

The United Nations is very clear on this. In fact, the definition of genocide given by the United Nations Genocide Convention is practically a description of what was done to the Volga Germans and the Germans from the rest of Russia:

"'acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.' These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly'."

Genocide of Germans started long before WWII
While it is true that the genocide carried out against Germans from Russia reached its peak in 1941 (and that this is a very representative date of hatred since it even implied the suppression of the autonomous republic of the Volga Germans), it is false that this genocide began with World War II or the invasion of Russia, and that falsehood is denounced by history experts.

On the contrary, later, WWII was used as a pretext that tried to justify all these genocidal policies that destroyed an ethnic group, because Russia was afraid of being judged.

In fact, policies aimed at destroying this ethnic group and even deportations of Germans began long before World War II:

[https://wolgadeutsche.net/korn/Korn%20Vertreibung.pdf%20https://wolgadeutsche.net/korn/Korn_Vertreibung.pdf Korn, Robert. Ungesühntes Verbrechen.]

[https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=l%20cRHhLDPugC&printsec=frontcover&hl=es%20https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=l_cRHhLDPugC&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q&f=false Kaiser, D. Philipp (2014). Moscow's Final Solution: The Genocide of the German-Russian Volga Colonies.]

Therefore, the vandal edition of the Russian user Mellk, who tries to show that the genocidal policies against the Germans in Russia began with WWII, is completely false.

It is enough to see that at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, many Germans from Russia had to emigrate to Canada, the United States, Argentina and Brazil as a direct consequence of the aggressive policy of Russification imposed by the government, in addition to the killings, confiscations and even deportations. However, the vandal edition of said user suppresses those reasons, showing that the mass emigration of Germans from the Volga to the Americas would have been due to a simple "whim". This is a completely intentional concealment of history.

Of course, all those persecutions and killings worsened in the pre-revolution stage and of course also in the post-revolution stage.

Other vandal editions by user Mellk
Among other vandalized information, the Russian user insists on editing that Americans and Argentines of Volga German descent are Volga Germans themselves, which is obviously false.

That can be seen in the "Notable people of Volga German descent" section, which he repeatedly changes to "Notable Volga Germans", even though the names listed there have clear descriptions in which it can be seen that most of those people have other citizenships. In fact, of the 28 personalities listed there, only 2 were born in the Volga region. That is yet another vandalism that clearly shows user Mellk's repeated editions to be arbitrary and completely without foundation.

Regards.--Creamb (talk) 12:07, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

 * Please familiarize yourself with WP policies first. Vandalism has a specific meaning and in this case this is a personal attack. I am not going to bother reading all of the walls of text but an IP editor recently added sources (actual scholarly sources rather than self-published books) about a debate on the label so your claim that All the experts on the subject call it genocide is bullshit, sorry. Mellk (talk) 12:18, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, the content I removed was all what you yourself added. For example in this edit on Saratov you add a whole paragraph just adding your own commentary without any references. This is basic. Mellk (talk) 12:20, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Precisely your actions are framed within the "malicious removal of encyclopedic content", among others, which is vandalism.

You are "not going to 'bother' reading all of the 'walls' of text"...?

So you're not serious but not even a little...

Well, if you are not serious to the point of arbitrarily undoing the legitimate edits and you think you are so special that you are not even going to "bother" reading what we the users write on the talk page, then you openly accept that you are a simple vandal/troll.

Regardless, you are still making use of falsehood: none of the authors cited by that "IP editor" denies the genocide carried out against the Germans. Quite to the contrary, those authors describe the genocide.

In addition to that, I have named several experts above, true specialists and authors of various books, and they all agree that what Russia did against the Germans was genocide.

What happens is that you are too special to "bother" to read the talk page, but you are not too special to undo the legitimate edits of the rest of the users.

Consequently, your vandal edits will be undo. And if you continue with this attitude, I will report all your malicious actions.

Regards.--Creamb (talk) 17:11, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

 * Well considering you immediately attack me by falsely accusing me of having a history of vandalizing references and creating disputes on Wikipedia after editing many articles with an ideological bias in favor of the crimes carried out by Russia and repeatedly accusing me of vandalism, as well as making assumptions about my background, why should I bother to engage with you? You did not bother with WP:AGF and went straight to personal attacks. Now you say I am a simple vandal/troll. I have already alerted you about WP:CTOPICS so be careful not to shoot yourself in the foot. Mellk (talk) 17:23, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * And another editor who started the discussion on this said the same thing. So unless you also want to call them a troll. Mellk (talk) 17:26, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Also the mentions of genocide are still there, your unreliable self-published sources (PLEASE just read WP:SPS) were removed and your edits do not follow WP:NPOV. Mellk (talk) 17:32, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa wasn't Empress of Austria and Hungary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.13.154.225 (talk) 10:49, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Notable Volga Germans list
What is the intent of this section? Pamela Anderson was removed for having only one Volga German grandparent in reliable sources, but it looks like others listed are also only of partial Volga German descent. Should this list be pruned? The mismatch may be due to the section title change by Mellk. 166.198.252.18 (talk) 23:42, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Volga Germans


text:
Alexei Sayle

Alexei David Sayle (born 7 August 1952) is an English actor, author, stand-up comedian, television presenter and former recording artist. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement in the 1980s. He was voted the 18th greatest stand-up comic of all time on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups in 2007. In an updated 2010 poll he came 72nd.

Much of Sayle's humour is in the tradition of Spike Milligan and Monty Python, with riffs based on often absurd and surreal premises. His act is known for its cynicism and political awareness, as well as physical comedy.

Early life
Sayle was born and brought up in the Anfield suburb of Liverpool, the son of Molly (Malka) Sayle (née Mendelson), a pools clerk, and Joseph Henry Sayle, a railway guard, both of whom were members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Sayle's mother was of Lithuanian Jewish descent, and some members of his family were devout Jews. Sayle was named after Maxim Gorky, whose real name was Alexei Maximovich Peshkov.

From 1964 to 1969, he attended Alsop High School in Walton, and was expelled halfway through sixth form. After that, Sayle took a foundation course in art at Southport, before attending Chelsea College of Art and Design in London. He attended Garnett College in Roehampton, a training college for teachers in further education.

Stand-up comedy and theatre
When The Comedy Store opened in London in 1979, Sayle responded to an advert in Private Eye for would-be comedians and became its first master of ceremonies. In 1980, comedy producer Martin Lewis saw Sayle perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and became his manager.

Sayle became the leading performer at The Comic Strip. He appeared on The Comic Strip Album (1981) and recorded Cak! (1982). He also appeared in the stage show, film and comedy album of The Secret Policeman's Other Ball (1981–1982). Sayle's material covered a broad range of topics, but one of his favourite subjects remained politics. His angry persona, coupled with his vociferous delivery, gave immense bite to his material. A typical example of Sayle's humour was his attack on American phrases: "If you travel to the States ... they have a lot of different words than like what we use. For instance: they say 'elevator', we say 'lift'; they say 'drapes', we say 'curtains'; they say 'president', we say 'seriously deranged git!'"

In 1988 Sayle played the role of Trinculo the King's jester in Shakespeare's The Tempest, directed by Jonathan Miller at the Old Vic theatre in London. Sixteen years on from his last stand-up comedy tour, Sayle returned in 2011 as an MC, compering the middle section of ''At Last! The 1981 Show'', produced by Stewart Lee at the Royal Festival Hall. Although this was mainly a nostalgia night with comedians such as Nigel Planer and Norman Lovett revisiting their material from the 1980s, Sayle premiered some new material that was more anecdotal than his previous work. Sayle says of his old style, "What I was doing, which I hadn't realised, was a comic persona. The guy in the tight suit was actually a creation. I thought it was me in a sense but it wasn't".

With artists such as Isy Suttie and Jim Bob, Sayle appeared at the fourth "Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People" event at the Bloomsbury Theatre in December 2011. In January and February 2012, he compered four nights of stand-up comedy at the Soho Theatre. He completed a full UK stand-up tour in October and November 2012 and a sixteen-night residency at the Soho Theatre in January and February 2013, where he performed new material. He played a further ten nights at the Soho Theatre in April 2013. He also performed at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He has toured extensively in recent years.

Radio
Sayle's early work included several performances for Capital London. In 1979, he wrote and performed the radio series, Alexei Sayle and the Fish People, for which he won a Pye Radio Award (later known as the Sony Radio Awards). An album based on the show, The Fish People Tapes, again featuring Sayle, was released. This was followed by Alexei Sayle and the Dutch Lieutenant's Trousers in 1980, the name being a reference to John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman. He also starred in two series of Lenin of the Rovers, a 1988 comedy about Britain's first communist football team. He has since contributed to many other radio shows, including writing the five-part sitcom series, Sorry About Last Night (1999), in which he also played the leading role. On 3 November 2006 he presented Chopwell Soviet, a 30-minute programme on BBC Radio 4 that reviewed the Chopwell miners 80 years after the village of Chopwell became known as Little Moscow. Sayle returned to Radio 4 in 2016 with Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar, which has run for four critically acclaimed series so far. In 2019, he narrated the dramatisation of four of his short stories in the series Alexei Sayle's The Absence of Normal, again on Radio 4. A second series was broadcast in 2021.

Since February 2022 Sayle has presented BBC Radio 4's Alexei Sayle's Strangers on a Train.

Television
Sayle's first high-profile television appearances were on Central Independent Television's late-night alternative cabaret show O.T.T. (1982). He left nine weeks into the show's run to tour Australia with the Comic Strip. He played various roles in the situation comedy The Young Ones (1982–1984), along with Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer and Christopher Ryan. In the programme Sayle portrayed several members of an Eastern European family; the Balowskis. In 1985, he appeared in the Doctor Who serial Revelation of the Daleks. In a column for a British tabloid newspaper around the same time, he indicated that he wanted to become the "first Socialist Doctor." He also appeared in several episodes of The Comic Strip Presents... between 1985 and 1993, playing the two leading roles in Didn't You Kill My Brother? which he co-wrote with David Stafford and Pauline Melville. Sayle has co-written and starred in many other programmes, including three series of Alexei Sayle's Stuff (1988–1991), two series of The All New Alexei Sayle Show (1994–1995) and one series of Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round (1998).

In 1989, Sayle was awarded an International Emmy for Stuff. In conversation with Mark Thomas on BBC Radio 4's informal chat-show Chain Reaction, Sayle revealed that the first he knew of the award was when he watched Channel 4 News and saw, to his amazement, Benny Hill collecting the award on his behalf. In 1990, Sayle had a fatwa proclaimed against him by a Muslim cleric from Syria after a joke on his BBC comedy show Stuff, which has never been withdrawn.

Sayle was signed in 1992 to a seven-year contract to play an Eastern European chef as a regular character on the American sitcom The Golden Palace, the sequel to The Golden Girls, but was fired and replaced by Cheech Marin before the pilot was filmed. The series was cancelled after one season.

In 1994, he presented the miniseries Drive, which gave advice for safe driving through Sayle's signature form of humour interspersed with serious pieces. In 2008, he wrote and presented Alexei Sayle's Liverpool, a three-part television series in which he reconnected with his home town. He stated in the programmes that on first hearing that Liverpool was to be awarded the European Capital of Culture, he received much criticism for describing the city as "philistine". He now feels that he does not know whether or not his original statement was true but as a result of making the series he does now consider Liverpool to be his home, and he has vowed to go back there more often in the future.

Sayle also narrated the Public information film (PIF) Moon Lighters about two moon creatures, Biblock and Hoblock and the dangers of lighters. Sayle replaced Rolf Harris as the narrator for the Nick Jr. and Milkshake! series Olive The Ostrich. Episodes featuring Sayle's narration commenced broadcasting on 22 July 2013.

Film
Sayle alternates his comedy work with performances as a character actor ranging from serious (Gorky Park, 1983) to humorous (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 1989). He appeared in the 1992 Carry On film, Carry On Columbus along with other modern comedians, including Comic Strip founder Peter Richardson, as well as surviving members of the original Carry On team. He narrated the 2023 political documentary film Oh, Jeremy Corbyn: The Big Lie and the 2024 sequel, The Big Lie II: Starmer and the Genocide.

Music
Sayle has released five comedy singles with full musical backing, and one live recording from the Comedy Store in London 1981. This was "Dedication", released as a double A side with Alex Arundel, the London-based Scottish songwriter and founding member of Alternative Cabaret, with the song "When The Gold Runs Dry" being the other A side. Sayle's most successful single was "'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor?", which achieved Top 20 chart success in the UK upon re-release in 1984. Produced by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley (who also produced for Madness and Elvis Costello), the record (in its 12-inch version) achieved notoriety owing to its extensive use of profane language. The two follow-up singles, "Didn't You Kill My Brother?", and "Meanwhile", were taken from the album Panic, the cover of which parodies the cover of the Michael Jackson album Off the Wall.

Writing
Sayle has written two short story collections, five novels, including a graphic novel and a radio series spin-off book, as well as columns for various publications. His book Great Bus Journeys of the World, co-written with David Stafford, is mostly a collection of his columns for Time Out and the Sunday Mirror. He was one of eight contributory authors to the BBC Three competition End of Story, in which members of the public completed the second half of stories written by established authors. The winning entry to Sayle's story, Imitating Katherine Walker, was written by freelance writer Arthur Allan. Sayle's autobiography, Stalin Ate My Homework, which deals with his early life, and which he describes as a 'satirical memoir', was published in 2010. In 2012 he joined The Daily Telegraph as a motoring columnist. In early 2015 he toured giving readings from the second volume of his autobiography Thatcher Stole My Trousers, published in 2016.

Internet
In November 2020, Sayle began hosting a monthly podcast, The Alexei Sayle Podcast. Produced/co-hosted by Talal Karkouti; guests have included Josie Long, Stewart Lee, Omid Djalili, Lise Mayer, Diane Morgan and Jeremy Corbyn.

He also launched a YouTube channel, showcasing videos of various bike rides.

Personal life
In 1974, Sayle married Linda Rawsthorn. He lives in Bloomsbury in central London and is a keen cyclist. He also owns a house near Granada, in southern Spain. He was diagnosed with sarcoidosis in 1990. A recurrence of this condition in 2015 led to him being rushed to hospital and then transferred to a neurological unit for a week.

Political views
Around the age of 15, Sayle decided to join the Young Communist League, but only went to a few meetings. In 1968, he joined a Maoist organisation, the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist). In 2009, he said that, while no longer active in left politics, "I still would adhere to those philosophical and economic ideas of Marxism that I got when I was sixteen. ... it's seemed to me as true now as it did then".

Sayle is a critic of fox hunting and was among more than 20 high-profile people who signed a letter to Members of Parliament in 2015 to oppose Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron's plan to amend the Hunting Act 2004.

Labour Party
In February 2016, Sayle said of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn: "He's ascetic and morally incorruptible. The propaganda that's thrown against him is disgraceful. Until he appeared, you had to vote for one kind of Oxbridge twat or another, people who all go to the same dinner parties, people like the Ed Ballses and George Osbornes. Jeremy has shown that, within a democratic tradition, other things are possible." In 2016, he wrote a comment piece for The Guardian saying that he was happy to mock New Labour in his act, but now that Corbyn was about to "reform the party in his own image – ascetic, socialist, kindly and ethical", he would stop making jokes about Labour.

In May 2018, regarding the expulsion of Marc Wadsworth from the Labour Party, Sayle commented: "The Party should walk over broken glass to beg people of Marc's calibre to work with them – they are very few and Marc is one of the best. There is a battle going on to destroy and reverse the unexpected and amazing gains the left has made in the last three years. Marc is a casualty in that battle and I am joining the fight to see him re-instated to the front line."

In November 2019, along with other public figures, Sayle signed a letter supporting Corbyn, describing him as "a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent far-right nationalism, xenophobia and racism in much of the democratic world" and endorsed him in the 2019 UK general election. In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, he signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."

Involvement with accusations of party antisemitism
In January 2020, he was condemned by some Jewish groups after being one of thousands to sign an open letter criticising Rebecca Long-Bailey and other Labour leadership candidates for saying they would sign a 10-point pledge by the Board of Deputies of British Jews intended to combat anti-semitism, should they be elected. The letter was organised by Momentum activist Jackie Walker and former Labour MP Chris Williamson, both of whom were expelled from Labour in relation to controversial allegations of anti-semitism.

In May 2021, Conservative MP Matthew Offord wrote to the BBC's Director-General urging, unsuccessfully, that the planned broadcast of Desert Island Discs featuring Sayle, on 23 May, be halted on the basis that every broadcaster "should be wary of giving a platform to anyone who is seen to be 'excusing' antisemitism". There was an outcry on social media in response, rejecting the claim that Sayle was doing this, with support for Sayle (whose mother came from an orthodox Jewish background) from across the board, and the resulting hashtag #IStandWithAlexeiSayle trending on UK Twitter.

Videos

 * 1983 The Alexei Sayle Pirate Video (Springtime)
 * 1995 Alexei Sayle's Stuff (Paradox)

DVDs

 * 2005 Alexei Sayle's Stuff Series One (BBC)
 * 2006 Alexei Sayle's Stuff Series Two (BBC)
 * 2006 Alexei Sayle's Stuff Series Three (BBC)

Albums

 * 1980: Live at The Comic Strip - compiled from mixture of variable quality bootleg private recordings by fans only available as a Tape Cassette (comedy club)
 * 1982: Cak! - LP/Tape (Springtime/Island)
 * 1984: The Fish People Tapes - LP/Tape (Island) (#62 UK, 11 March 1984)
 * 1985: Panic - LP/Tape (CBS)

Singles

 * 1981: "Pop-Up Toasters" (as Alexei's Midnight Runners) (Springtime/Island)
 * 1982: "Albania! Albania! (Albanixey! Albanixey!)" (as The Albanian World Cup Squad) (Albaniox)
 * 1982: "'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor?" (Springtime/Island) (#15 UK, 18 March 1984)
 * 1985: "Didn't You Kill My Brother?" (CBS) (#93 Canada, 18 January 1986)
 * 1986: "Meanwhile" (CBS)

Screenplays

 * Night Voice (1990)
 * 'Itch (1990)
 * Sorry About Last Night (1995)
 * Two Minutes (1996)
 * Lose Weight... Ask Me How (2001)

Collections
The University of Kent holds material by Sayle as part of the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive. The collection includes television scripts from The Young Ones and Doctor Who, radio scripts and material relating to his own shows.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Alexei Sayle


text:
Berlin Tempelhof Airport

Berlin Tempelhof Airport (Flughafen Berlin-Tempelhof) was one of the first airports in Berlin, Germany. Situated in the south-central Berlin borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg, the airport ceased operating in 2008 amid controversy, leaving Tegel and Schönefeld as the two main airports serving the city for another twelve years until both were replaced by Berlin Brandenburg Airport in 2020.

Tempelhof was designated as an airport by the Reich Ministry of Transport on 8 October 1923. The old terminal was originally constructed in 1927. In anticipation of increasing air traffic, the Nazi government began an enormous reconstruction in the mid-1930s. While it was occasionally cited as the world's oldest operating commercial airport, the title was disputed by several other airports, and is no longer an issue since its closure.

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. One of the airport's most distinctive features is its huge, canopy-style roof extending over the apron, able to accommodate most contemporary airliners in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, protecting passengers from the elements. Tempelhof Airport's main building was once among the twenty largest buildings on earth, but it also formerly contained the world's smallest duty-free shop.

Tempelhof Airport closed all operations on 30 October 2008, despite the efforts of some protesters to prevent the closure. A non-binding referendum was held on 27 April 2008 against the impending closure but failed due to low voter turnout. The former airfield has subsequently been used as a recreational space known as Tempelhofer Feld. In September 2015, it was announced that Tempelhof would also become an emergency refugee camp.

Function
Tempelhof was often called the "City Airport". In its later years, it mostly had commuter flights to other parts of Germany and neighbouring countries; but it had in the past received long-haul, wide-bodied airliners, such as the Boeing 747, the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar and the Lockheed C-5A Galaxy. The first of these three first appeared at Tempelhof on 18 September 1976, when Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) flew in Boeing 747SP Clipper Great Republic to participate in the static exhibition of contemporary military, non-combat and civil aircraft at the annual "Day of Open House" of the United States Air Force (USAF) at the airport.

The Galaxy had its first appearance at Tempelhof on 17 September 1971, when an aircraft of the USAF's 436th Military Airlift Wing flew in from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, United States, to participate in that year's "Day of Open House" static exhibition. These events respectively marked the debut at Tempelhof of the largest aircraft in commercial airline service at the time and the then-largest aircraft overall.

Tempelhof, compared to Brandenburg Airport and Tegel Airport, wasn't a particularly large airport. The layout of the airport was relatively simple - two parallel runways oriented east–west (09/27 L/R), with a single oval taxiway around the airport, with the main terminal on the north-western segment of the airport. The runways are not comparatively long, either - versus Brandenburg's 3600m and 4000m runways which can easily handle intercontinental airliners like the Boeing 747, Tempelhof has two runways at 2094m (09R/27L) and 1840m (09L/27R), which can, at most, handle Boeing 757 and Airbus A320-size aircraft.

Other possible uses for Tempelhof have been discussed, and many people are trying to keep the airport buildings preserved. In September 2015, in the midst of the 2015 European migrant crisis, it was announced by the Berlin state government that Tempelhof would become an 'emergency refugee shelter', holding at least 1,200 people in two former hangars.

History
The site of the airport was originally Knights Templar land in medieval Berlin, and from this beginning came the name Tempelhof. Later, the site was used as a parade field by the Prussian army from 1720 to the start of World War I. In 1909, French aviator Armand Zipfel made the first flight demonstration in Tempelhof, followed by Orville Wright later that same year. Tempelhof was first officially designated as an airport on 8 October 1923. Deutsche Luft Hansa was founded in Tempelhof on 6 January 1926.

The old terminal, originally constructed in 1927, became the world's first with an underground railway. The station has since been renamed Paradestraße, because the rebuilding of the airport in the 1930s required the airport access to be moved to a major intersection with a station now called Platz der Luftbrücke after the Berlin Airlift.

As part of Albert Speer's plan for the reconstruction of Berlin during the Nazi era, Prof. Ernst Sagebiel was ordered to replace the old terminal with a new terminal building in 1934. The airport halls and the adjoining buildings, intended to become the gateway to Europe and a symbol of Hitler's "world capital" Germania, are still known as one of the largest built entities worldwide, and have been described by British architect Sir Norman Foster as "the mother of all airports". With its façades of shell limestone, the terminal building, built between 1936 and 1941, forms a 1.2 km quadrant. Arriving passengers walked through customs controls to the reception hall. Tempelhof was served by the U6 U-Bahn line along Mehringdamm and up Friedrichstraße (Platz der Luftbrücke station).

Zentralflughafen Tempelhof-Berlin had the advantage of a central location just minutes from the Berlin city centre and quickly became one of the world's busiest airports. Tempelhof saw its greatest pre-war days during 1938–1939, when up to 52 foreign and 40 domestic flights arrived and departed daily from the old terminal while the new one was still under construction.

The new air terminal was designed as headquarters for Deutsche Luft Hansa (moved in 1938), the German national airline at that time. As a forerunner of today's modern airports, the building was designed with many unique features, including giant arc-shaped aircraft hangars. Although under construction for more than ten years, it was never finished because of World War II. For passengers and freight, the 1927-built terminal stayed in use until 24 April 1945.

The building complex was designed to resemble an eagle in flight with semicircular hangars forming the bird's spread wings. A 1 mi hangar roof was to have been laid in tiers to form a stadium for spectators at air and ground demonstrations. Norman Foster called Tempelhof "one of the really great buildings of the modern age".

World War II

Fearing Allied bombing of airports, all German civil aviation was halted on 2 September 1939, but gradually restarted from 1 November. However, the 1927-built terminal remained closed to all civil aviation, and all civilian aircraft movements to and from Berlin were transferred to an airfield in Rangsdorf until 7 March 1940, when the 1927 terminal was reopened and civil aviation continued until 24 April 1945.

From January 1940 until early 1944, Weser Flugzeugbau assembled Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bombers; thereafter, it assembled Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter planes in the still unfurnished main hall and hangars 3 to 7 of the new terminal, which were supplied by a railway and trucks via a connecting tunnel. Hangars 1 and 2 were not used to assemble aircraft as these were already used by Luft Hansa for its own planes. Aircraft parts were brought in from all over the city while complete aircraft engines were trucked to Tempelhof. Once the airframes were complete and the engines had been installed, the finished aircraft were flown out. The Luftwaffe did not use Tempelhof as a military airfield during World War II, except for occasional emergency landings by fighter aircraft.

On 21 April 1945, Deutsche Luft Hansa operated its last scheduled flights, and over the coming days laid on additional non-scheduled flights from Johannisthal Air Field which stopped over at Tempelhof to take on freight en route to Travemünde and Munich, where Luft Hansa had relocated its headquarters. Two days later, on 23 April, the airline's last-ever flight to depart Tempelhof left for Madrid, but was later shot down over Southern Germany.

Tempelhof's German commander, Oberst Rudolf Böttger, refused to carry out orders to blow up the base, choosing instead to kill himself. Soviet forces took Tempelhof in the Battle of Berlin on 28 and 29 April 1945 in the closing days of the war in Europe. Soviet forces combed through the old and the new terminal searching for treasures, hidden places and documents, opening all rooms.

During their search, they blew up the fortified entrance to a three-level bomb shelter for celluloid films of the Hansa Luftbild GmbH, a Luft Hansa subsidiary specialising in aerial photography. The explosion immediately ignited the celluloid, turning the film shelter under the northern office wing of the new terminal into a furnace and making it impossible to enter for several weeks. The raging inferno led the Soviet commander to order the lower levels to be flooded with water. With no functioning water supply in war-torn Berlin, this was only possible because the new terminal, which had suffered only slight war damage, had its own electricity and groundwater utility with underground reservoirs under the northerly forecourt of the new terminal close to the film shelter.

On 8 May 1945, Western Allied and German signatories of the German Surrender in Berlin and their entourage landed at Tempelhof airport. At the beginning of May, Weser Flugzeugbau opened a workshop in hangar 7 to repair streetcars. In the following weeks, Berliners raided all unguarded parts of the opened buildings searching for food or anything else useful in bartering in the black market. In accordance with the Yalta agreements, Zentralflughafen Berlin-Tempelhof was turned over to the United States Army 2nd Armored Division on 2 July 1945 by the Soviet Union as part of the American occupation sector of Berlin. This agreement was later formalised by the August 1945 Potsdam Agreement, which formally divided Berlin into four occupation sectors.

The 852nd Engineer Aviation Battalion arrived at Tempelhof (Code Number R-95) on 10 July 1945 and conducted the original repairs in the new terminal. After the Allied Control Council had agreed upon West Berlin Air Corridors under control of the Berlin Air Safety Center, these opened in February 1946, enabling civil aviation at Tempelhof to restart.

Berlin Airlift

On 20 June 1948, Soviet authorities, claiming technical difficulties, halted all traffic by land and by water into or out of the western-controlled sectors of Berlin. The only remaining access routes into the city were three 20 mi-wide air corridors across the Soviet Zone of Occupation. Faced with the choice of abandoning the city or attempting to supply its inhabitants with the necessities of life by air, the Western Powers chose the latter course.

Operation Vittles, as the airlift was unofficially named, began on 26 June when USAF Douglas C-47 Skytrains carried 80 tons of food into Tempelhof, far less than the estimated 4,500 tons of food, coal and other essential supplies needed daily to maintain a minimum level of existence. But this force was soon augmented by United States Navy and Royal Air Force cargo aircraft, as well as British European Airways (BEA) and many of Britain's fledgling wholly privately owned, independent airlines.

The last included Freddie Laker's Air Charter, Eagle Aviation and Skyways. On 15 October 1948, to promote increased safety and cooperation between the separate US and British airlift efforts, the Allies created a unified command – the Combined Airlift Task Force under Maj. Gen. William H. Tunner, USAF – at Tempelhof. To facilitate the command and control, as well as the unloading of aircraft, the USAF 53d Troop Carrier Squadron was temporarily assigned to Tempelhof.

The grass runways usual in Germany until then could not cope with the great demand, and a subsequently built runway containing perforated steel matting began to crumble under the weight of the USAF's C-54 Skymasters. Hence, American engineers built a new 6000 ft runway at Tempelhof between July and September 1948 and another between September and October 1948 to accommodate the expanding requirements of the airlift. The old airport terminal of 1927 was demolished in 1948 in order to create additional space for unloading more planes. The last airlift transport touched down at Tempelhof on 30 September 1949.

Tempelhof also became famous as the location of Operation Little Vittles: the dropping of candy to children living near the airport. The original Candy Bomber, Gail Halvorsen noticed children lingering near the fence line of the airport and wanted to share something with them. He eventually started dropping candy by parachute just before landing. His efforts were expanded by other pilots and eventually became a part of legend in the city of Berlin.

Cold War
As the Cold War intensified in the late 1950s and 1960s, access problems to West Berlin, both by land and air, continued to cause tension. Throughout the Cold War years, Tempelhof was the main terminal for American military transport aircraft accessing West Berlin. In 1969 one of the pilots during the Berlin Airlift, and the original Candy Bomber, Gail Halvorsen, returned to Berlin as the commander of Tempelhof airbase.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the presence of American forces in Berlin ended. The USAF 7350th Air Base Group at Tempelhof was inactivated in June 1993. In July 1994, with President Clinton in attendance, the British, French, and American air and land forces in Berlin were deactivated in a ceremony on the Four Ring Parade field at McNair Barracks. The Western Allies returned a united city of Berlin to the unified German government. The U.S. Army closed its Berlin Army Aviation Detachment at TCA in August 1994, ending a 49-year American military presence in Berlin.

U.S. Army Aviation
In 1951 the US Army stationed an aviation element of the 6. Infantry Brigade-(6th Infantry Regiment?) with three Hiller OH-23A Raven helicopters at Tempelhof. Over the years it became known as the Berlin Brigade Aviation Detachment (BBDE Avn.Det.). The Hiller OH-23A was soon replaced by Bell OH-13 Sioux. Further helicopters stationed over the years where Sikorsky H-19 Chikasaw (1958–1964), Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw (1962–1964), Bell UH-1B (1964–1971)and finally Bell UH-1H (May 1971– August 1994).

Fixed wing aircraft stationed at Tempelhof were Cessna O-1 Bird Dog (1965–1975), De Havilland Canada U-6 Beaver (1968 – January 1980), Cessna O-2A (1975–1979), Pilatus UV-20A Chiricahua (1979–1991), Beechcraft U-8D Seminole(1960s), Beechcraft U-21 (1970s–1986 and 1991–1994), as well as Beechcraft C-12C (1986–1991).

Postwar commercial use

American Overseas Airlines (AOA), at the time the overseas division of American Airlines, inaugurated the first commercial air link serving Tempelhof after the war with a flight from New York via Shannon, Amsterdam and Frankfurt on 18 May 1946. This was followed by AOA's inauguration of West Berlin's first dedicated domestic air link between Tempelhof and Frankfurt's Rhein-Main Airport on 1 March 1948.

AOA was the only commercial operator at Tempelhof to maintain its full flying programme for the entire duration of the Berlin Blockade (26 June 1948 – 12 May 1949).

Following the end of the Berlin Blockade, AOA launched additional dedicated scheduled services linking Tempelhof with Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel and Düsseldorf Lohausen from 6 March and 1 June 1950 respectively.

On 25 September 1950, Pan Am acquired AOA from American Airlines. This merger resulted in Pan Am establishing a growing presence at Tempelhof. (In addition to continuing AOA's original, multistop Berlin – New York route and dedicated internal German services connecting Berlin with Frankfurt, Hamburg and Düsseldorf, between 1955 and 1959, Pan Am commenced regular, year-round scheduled services to Cologne, Stuttgart, Hanover, Munich and Nuremberg from Tempelhof. ) Pan Am's initial equipment for its new Berlin operation were unpressurised, 60-seat Douglas DC-4s, widely available at the time due to the large number of war-surplus C-54 Skymasters.

1950 was also the year Air France joined Pan Am at Tempelhof. Air France resumed operations to Tempelhof following their cessation during the war years.

This was furthermore the time Allied restrictions on the carriage of local civilians on commercial airline services from/to West Berlin were lifted. It entailed transferring responsibility for processing all commercial flights to West Berlin's city government, including the operation and maintenance of associated passenger, cargo and mail handling facilities. These changes gave a major boost to West Berlin's fledgeling post-war scheduled air services.

On 8 July 1951, BEA transferred its operations from Gatow to Tempelhof, thus concentrating all West Berlin air services at Berlin's iconic city centre airport. BEA's move to Tempelhof resulted in a significant increase in passenger numbers, as well as an increase in its Berlin-based fleet to six Douglas DC-3s.

From then on, several of the new, wholly privately owned UK independent airlines and US supplemental carriers started regular air services to Tempelhof from the UK, the US and West Germany. These airlines initially carried members of the UK and US armed forces stationed in Berlin and their dependants as well as essential raw materials, finished goods manufactured in West Berlin and refugees from East Germany and Eastern Europe, who were still able to freely enter the city prior to the construction of the infamous Berlin Wall. This operation was also known as the Little Berlin Airlift. One of these airlines, UK independent Dan-Air Services would subsequently play an important role in developing commercial air services from Tegel for a quarter century.

During the early-to-mid-1950s, BEA leased in aircraft that were bigger than its Tempelhof-based fleet of DC-3/Pionair, Viking and Elizabethan piston-engined airliners from other operators to boost capacity, following a steady increase in the airline's passenger loads. (This included an ex-Transair Vickers Viscount 700 belonging to its newly formed independent rival British United Airways, which was damaged beyond repair on 30 October 1961 at Frankfurt Rhein-Main Airport at the end of a passenger flight that had originated at Tempelhof.  )

By 1954, a year that saw 671,555 passengers pass through the airport, Tempelhof had established itself as the third-busiest airport in Europe. From 6 June of that year, Pan Am. began re-equipping its Tempelhof-based fleet with larger, pressurised Douglas DC-6B propliners. Compared with the DC-4, the new type had 16 additional seats.

In 1958, BEA began replacing its piston airliners with Vickers Viscount 701 turboprop aircraft, in a high-density 63-seat single class seating arrangement. Up to ten new, state-of-the-art Vickers Viscount 802s, which featured a more spacious 66-seat single-class seating arrangement, soon replaced the older series 701 aircraft. The greater range and higher cruising speed of the 802 series enabled BEA to inaugurate a non-stop London Heathrow – Berlin Tempelhof service on 1 November 1965. this was the only non-stop international scheduled air service from Tempelhof

On 19 November 1959, a Pan Am DC-4 became the first aircraft to operate a scheduled all-cargo service from West Berlin. This service linked Tempelhof with Rhein-Main Airport once-nightly, all year round.

On 2 January 1960, Air France, which had served Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Nuremberg and its main base at Paris Le Bourget/Orly during the previous decade with DC-4, Sud-Est Languedoc and Lockheed Constellation/Super Constellation piston-engined equipment, shifted its entire Berlin operation to Tegel because Tempelhof's runways were too short to permit the introduction of the Sud-Aviation Caravelle, their new short-haul jet, with a viable payload. (Air France's Caravelle IIIs lacked thrust reversers that would have permitted them to land safely on Tempelhof's short runways with a full commercial payload. )

On 1 March 1960, Pan Am launched its second dedicated scheduled all-cargo flight from Berlin, linking Tempelhof with Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel.

1960 was also the year Pan Am withdrew its last DC-4 from Tempelhof. As a result, all of the airline's Berlin routes were exclusively served with DC-6Bs as of 27 June of that year. Although the DC-6B was a less advanced aircraft than either the Viscount or the Caravelle, it was more economical. By the early 1960s, Pan Am had a fleet of 15 DC-6Bs stationed at its Tempelhof base, which were configured in a higher-density seating arrangement than competing airlines' aircraft. (Pan Am's DC-6Bs were originally configured in a 76-seat, all-economy layout. The subsequent introduction of subsidies for all scheduled internal German services from/to West Berlin resulted in steady network growth as well as service frequency and passenger load increases. To cope with the sharply higher traffic volumes, aircraft seat densities were increased twice – initially to 84 and subsequently 87 seats. ) This fleet eventually grew to 17 aircraft, which gave Pan Am the biggest aircraft fleet among the three main scheduled operators flying from West Berlin. It furthermore enabled it to compensate for the DC-6's lack of sophistication with higher frequencies than its competitors, thereby attaining a higher market share (60%) and capturing a greater share of the lucrative business travel market than its rivals. During that period, Pan Am moreover achieved an ultra short-haul load factor of 70% on its eight scheduled internal routes from Berlin, making the airline's Berlin routes the most profitable in its worldwide scheduled network.

Following the completion of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961, the West German government introduced a route-specific subsidy of up to 20% for all internal German scheduled air services from and to West Berlin to help the airlines cope with the resulting falloff in traffic and maintain an economically viable operation on these lifeline routes. These came into effect on 1 March 1962 for all tickets sold in Germany, including Berlin. (To qualify for the subsidised rate under this system, the passenger was required to purchase a round-trip ticket for a scheduled internal German flight from/to West Berlin in Germany. Once he/she had checked-in at the airport, the airline collected a coupon attached to his/her ticket, which was subsequently handed in to the relevant German authorities for reimbursement. )

By the early 1960s, a number of UK independents and US supplementals began operating regular charter flights from Tempelhof. These carried both inbound tourists from the US, the UK and other countries as well as local outbound tourists to the emerging holiday resorts in the Mediterranean. London Gatwick-based UK independent Overseas Aviation (CI) was among the first airlines the Allied Air Attachés in Bonn licensed to operate a series of regular charter flights from West Berlin. It used Vikings and Argonauts on these services, which operated from Tempelhof under contract to the Berlin Senate and the city's Technical University as well as Berliner Flugring, a local package tour operator that began as a consortium of 70 West Berlin travel agents arranging IT flights to holiday resorts in Europe.

By 1964, BEA operated up to 20,000 flights each year from and to Berlin. These represented approximately half of the airline's total yearly flights to/from Germany and generated profits of £1 million per year. 1964 was also the year US supplemental Saturn Airways began operating a comprehensive inclusive tour (IT) charter flight programme from Tempelhof under contract to local package holiday consolidator Flug-Union Berlin, using Douglas DC-6A/Cs and DC-7Cs. On 2 December of that year, a Boeing 727-100 became the first jet aircraft to land at Tempelhof. Boeing had leased the aircraft to Pan Am for a special flight from Frankfurt to Berlin to demonstrate to the airline the 727's ability to operate from Tempelhof's short runways. Pan Am indicated its intention to place an order for six 727s for its Berlin operation, as a result of the aircraft using only half the 5900 ft runway during landing.

26 October 1965 marked British Aircraft Corporation's new One-Eleven jet's first arrival at Tempelhof when a British United 200 series operating a trooping flight under contract to the UK Ministry of Defence diverted from Gatow.

22 January 1966 marked the first appearance of a British trijet at Tempelhof when Hawker Siddeley flew in its HS 121 Trident 1E demonstrator aircraft for evaluation by BEA. A week later, on 29 January, BEA began evaluating the BAC One-Eleven's suitability for its Berlin operations, with the start of a series of test flights conducted on its behalf by BAC's 475 series demonstrator. This included a number of takeoffs and landings at Tempelhof to test the aircraft's short-field performance.

On 18 March 1966, Pan Am became the first airline to commence regular, year-round jet operations from Tempelhof with the first examples of a brand-new fleet of an initial eight Boeing 727-100 series, one of the first jet aircraft with a short-field capability. These aircraft were configured in a single class featuring 128 economy seats.

Pan Am's move put BEA at a considerable competitive disadvantage, especially on the busy Berlin–Frankfurt route where the former out-competed the latter with both modern jet planes as well as a higher flight frequency. BEA responded to Pan Am's competitive threat by increasing the Berlin-based fleet to 13 Viscounts by winter 1966/7 to enable it to offer higher frequencies. This entailed re-configuring aircraft cabins in a lower-density seating arrangement, as a result of which the refurbished cabins featured only 53, Comet-type first-class seats in a four-abreast layout instead of 66, five-abreast economy seats. In addition, BEA sought to differentiate itself from its main competitor by providing a superior in-flight catering standard. (BEA's Silver Star service included complimentary hot meals on all flights whereas Pan Am merely offered free on-board snacks. Sections of the local press dubbed the contrasting strategies of the two main protagonists plying the internal German routes from Berlin – estimated to be worth £15–20 million in annual revenues – the Dinner oder Düsen? (Dinner or Jet?) battle.) Henceforth, the airline marketed these services as Super Silver Star.

The introduction of Pan Am's 727s to the Berlin market represented a major step change because of the aircraft's ability to carry more passengers than any other contemporary aircraft type used by scheduled carriers in the short-haul Berlin market, and its ability to take off from and land on Tempelhof's short runways with a full commercial payload as only light fuel loads were required on the short internal German services. Compared with BEA, Pan Am's 727s carried 20% more passengers than the British carrier's Comet 4Bs and up to $2 1/2$ times as many passengers as the latter's Viscounts.

Within two years of Pan Am's introduction of jet equipment on the bulk of its internal German services from/to West Berlin, its market share rose from 58% to 68%. Despite the huge increase in capacity over the DC-6B (128 vs. 87 seats), load factors dropped during the first year of operations only. (Pan Am's second year of jet operations from Tempelhof saw load factors steadying while the third saw a slight increase. ) The lower seat density in BEA's re-configured Viscounts combined with higher flight frequencies, superior catering and increased promotion proved insufficient to counter the appeal of Pan Am's new jets, which were laid out in a comparatively tight, 34 in pitch seating configuration. This resulted in BEA's market share declining from 38% at the beginning of this period to 27% at its end. On the other hand, BEA's reduced capacity in the domestic air travel market between West Berlin and West Germany enabled it to attain higher load factors than its competitors.

From August 1968, BEA supplemented its Tempelhof-based Viscount fleet with de Havilland Comet 4B series jetliners. Although these aircraft could operate from Tempelhof's short runways with a restricted payload, they were not suited to the airline's ultra short-haul operation from Berlin (average stage length: 230 mi) given the high fuel consumption of the Comet, especially when operating at the mandatory 10000 ft altitude inside the Allied air corridors. This measure was therefore only a stopgap until most of BEA's Berlin fleet was equipped with 97-seat, single-class BAC One-Eleven 500s. BEA's re-equipment of its Berlin fleet with brand-new One-Eleven 500 jets was central to the airline's competitive strategy to regain ground lost to Pan Am's 727s. The new One-Eleven 500, which BEA called the Super One-Eleven, operated its first scheduled service from Berlin on 1 September 1968. It began replacing the airline's Berlin-based Viscounts from 17 November 1968.

1968 was also the year all non-scheduled services, i.e. primarily the rapidly growing number of inclusive tour charter flights, were concentrated at Tegel to alleviate increasing congestion at Tempelhof and to make better use of Tegel, which was underutilised at the time.

Air France, West Berlin's third scheduled carrier, which had suffered a continuous traffic decline ever since the transfer of Berlin operations to more distant Tegel at the beginning of 1960 due to Tempelhof's operational limitations that made it unsuitable for its Caravelles, was worst affected by the equipment changes at the latter airport during the mid-to-late 1960s. Over this period, the French airline's market share halved from 9% to less than 5% despite having withdrawn from Tegel–Düsseldorf in summer 1964 and concentrated its limited resources on Tegel–Frankfurt and Tegel–Munich to maximise the competitive impact on the latter two routes. To reverse growing losses on its Berlin routes resulting from load factors as low as 30%, Air France decided to withdraw from the internal German market entirely and instead enter into a joint venture with BEA. This arrangement entailed the latter taking over the former's two remaining German domestic routes to Frankfurt and Munich and operating these with its own aircraft and flightdeck crews from Tempelhof. It also entailed repainting the fins of the BEA One-Eleven 500s in a neutral, dark-blue scheme featuring Super One-Eleven titles instead of BEA's "Speedjack" motif. The Air France-BEA joint venture became operational in spring 1969 and terminated in autumn 1972.

Commercial air traffic from/to Berlin Tempelhof peaked in 1971 at just above $5 1/2$ million passengers (out of a total of 6.12 million passengers for all West Berlin airports during that year ). This represented more than 90% of West Berlin's commercial air traffic and made its iconic city centre airport Germany's second-largest. With $3 1/2$ million passengers, Pan Am accounted for the bulk of this traffic while almost all of the remaining 2 million accrued to BEA. 1971 was also the year the latter's last Berlin-based Viscount departed the city.

East Germany's relaxation of border controls affecting all surface transport modes between West Berlin and West Germany across its territory from 1972 onwards resulted in a decline of scheduled internal German air traffic from/to West Berlin. This was further compounded by the economic downturn in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. The resulting fare increases that were intended to recover the airlines' higher operating costs caused by steeply rising jet fuel prices led to a further drop in demand. This in turn resulted in a major contraction of Pan Am's and BEA's/British Airways's internal German operations, necessitating a reduction in both airlines' Berlin-based fleets and workforces in an attempt to contain growing losses these once profitable routes generated by the mid-1970s.

On 1 September 1975, Pan Am and British Airways moved their entire Berlin operation to the newly built terminal at Tegel Airport. Following Pan Am's and British Airways's move to Tegel, commercial operations at Tempelhof ceased, resulting in exclusive use by the US military.

From 1978, Pan Am relocated its 727 flightdeck crew training from Miami International Airport to Berlin Tempelhof. This involved [re-]training all pilots and flight engineers who crewed the flight decks of the airline's 727 fleet, which at the time operated out of Miami to the Caribbean and Central America, as well as on the IGS routes from Berlin and intra-European feeder routes serving Frankfurt and Heathrow. Another airline that used Tempelhof to train its flightdeck crews was US supplemental Modern Air Transport. While all Modern Air commercial flights from and to Berlin principally used Tegel to take advantage of that airport's longer runways and the fact that it was not in a built-up area making for easier approaches, the airline conducted its training for Berlin-based flight deck crews at Tempelhof between 1968 and 1974. The latter was also the US supplemental's (and other Tegel-based operators') designated diversion airport in bad weather in the Tegel area.

Commercial operations restarted in 1981, when US-incorporated regional airline start-up Tempelhof Airways began a corporate shuttle between Tempelhof and Paderborn under contract to former German computer manufacturer Nixdorf whose main factories and offices were located in Paderborn and West Berlin respectively. Tempelhof Airways's initial equipment comprised Cessna Conquest and Piper Navajo executive aircraft. In 1985, the airline converted the Tempelhof–Paderborn corporate shuttle into a full-fledged scheduled service using a Nord 262 commuter turboprop.

The end of the Cold War and German reunification opened Tempelhof for non-allied air traffic on 3 October 1990. US President Bill Clinton christened a new Boeing C-17 Globemaster III transport plane (serial number 96-0006) the Spirit of Berlin at Tempelhof on 12 May 1998, to commemorate the 49th anniversary of the end of the Berlin Blockade on 12 May 1949.

Towards the end, commercial use was mostly in the form of small commuter aircraft flying regionally. Plans had been in place to shut down Tempelhof and Tegel, and make the new Brandenburg Airport the sole commercial airport for Berlin.

Closing down air traffic
In 1996, the mayor of Berlin Eberhard Diepgen, Brandenburg minister-president Manfred Stolpe and the federal transport minister Wissmann established the so-called "Consensus resolution". The entire planning aimed at concentrating domestic and international air traffic in Berlin and Brandenburg at one airport: Berlin-Schönefeld International Airport.

To ensure investment protection as well as to fend off opposition to Schönefeld International's expansion, it was mandated that first Tempelhof and then Tegel must be closed. On 4 December 2007, the Federal Administrative Court of Germany (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) made the final decision as court of last instance to close Tempelhof Airport.

Referendum against closing
An initiative for a nonbinding referendum against the closure was held and failed, after the initial number of signatures required were collected. According to the constitution of the state of Berlin, the number of supportive signatures that were required to be collected within four months in order to compel a referendum amounts to 7% of the population of Berlin entitled to vote – 169,784. After the four-month period for the collection of signatures 203,408 signatures had been lodged.

The referendum was held on 27 April 2008. All eligible voters received an information brochure along with their notification. A majority of the votes was necessary to support the referendum, but this had to be at least one quarter of all eligible Berlin voters.

The initiative for keeping Tempelhof open was supported by the Interessengemeinschaft City-Airport Tempelhof (ICAT) along with a couple of opposition parties in the Berlin city parliament: the Christian Democratic Union and the Free Democratic Party citing primarily the need for an inner-city airport for business and private flyers as well as nostalgic reasons. Representatives from the ICAT suggested keeping the airport open up until Schönefeld Airport was to be completed in about 2012. The Berlin government insisted on the closure of the airport for legal, long-term economic, and environmental reasons, in particular to ensure the expansion of Schönefeld International. Environmental groups and the Green party supported them in this.

Plans for the future would include for example a Berlin airlift museum in the old terminal building, commercial space for innovative businesses, new housing and industrial areas, sports facilities, and parks. Legally the decision in favour of closure at the end of October 2008 was irrevocable and the referendum was nonbinding. A subsequent reopening would have faced high legal barriers; but some legal experts claimed there may be means to circumvent this.

The referendum of 27 April 2008 failed. Although 60.2% of the votes cast were for keeping the airport open, this was by only 21.7% of the eligible voters; short of the 25% required. Support had been highest in western districts of Berlin (up to 80%), but opposition (only 30% approval) and disinterest was prevalent in the eastern districts. Voter turnout of 36% was low. Air traffic at Tempelhof Airport ceased for good on 30 October and the official licence expired in mid-December.

A "Goodbye Tempelhof" gala was held at Tempelhof airport for eight hundred invited guests in the last hours of 30 October. Meanwhile, protesters against the closing held a candle vigil in front on the Platz der Lufbrücke. The last commercial flight was a Cirrus Airlines Dornier 328 that departed at 22:17 towards Mannheim. "Time to Say Goodbye" was sung to the spectators on the apron at the conclusion. At precisely four and a half minutes before midnight, the last two airplanes – a historical Junkers Ju 52 and an airlift "raisin bomber" Douglas DC-3 – took off in parallel, waved their wings, and flew off south-east to Schönefeld airport. The runway and air field lights were switched off at midnight.

Three Antonov An-2 airplanes flying under VFR were left stranded at the airport, as weather conditions prevented them from taking off on 30 October. They were allowed to take off on 24 November 2008, making them the last aircraft to take off from the airport.

ABB Formula E Berlin ePrix
The ABB Formula E used variations of the Tempelhof Airport Street Circuit for the Berlin ePrix in 2015 and from 2017 to 2023. There are plans hold it again. In 2020 due to COVID-19, there were held 6 rounds on the circuit with rounds 1 and 2 going on the reverse layout and rounds 5 and 6 having the extended layout for the first time.

Public park
In August 2009, Berlin city officials announced that the Tempelhof outfields would be opened in May 2010 as a city park. The city planned to spend an estimated €60 million on developing the park from 2010 to 2017. On the weekend of 8/9 May 2010, the outfield was festively opened as Berlin's largest public park named "Tempelhofer Feld". More than 200,000 Berliners visited the park to enjoy its wide open spaces for recreation ranging from biking and skating to baseball and flying kites. The opening ceremonies were slightly marred by some protesters unhappy about the fence that closed off the park during the night.

Entrance is free with park hours being from 6/7/7.30 a.m., depending on the season, until sunset. The grounds are maintained by Grün Berlin, a company that also looks after several other gated parks in Berlin. About 80% of the former airfield is an important habitat for several redlisted birds, plants and insects. Usage of the park is seasonally restricted to limit disturbance of Eurasian skylark breeding grounds.

In 2013, the Senate of Berlin introduced a plan to open the outer zones of the Tempelhof fields for construction of apartment and commercial buildings, and a new Berlin Central and Regional Library. An area of 230 ha was to remain a park, but was planned to be landscaped with a rain water reservoir, a 60-meter artificial boulder, groves and other new features. Landscaping was supposed to begin in 2013 and be completed in time for Germany's world horticultural exhibition IGA that was to be hosted in the park in 2017.

In a 2014 Referendum, Berlin's citizens decided to preserve the entire space of the park and prohibit any kind of development by law, thus putting an end to both construction and landscaping plans.

Event location
Tempelhof has been used since its closing to host numerous fairs and events. The first major events included a fashion tradeshow in July and the Berlin Festival 2009 concert in August. Fairs were held in the hangar. In September 2010, Tempelhof hosted the Popkomm, the international world's music and entertainment business meeting place and was one of the most important locations of the first Berlin Music Week.

The place also hosted sports events. The Berlin Marathon fair, the main event preparation to runners, was held at Tempelhof every September. The FIA Formula E Championship raced on the airport runways in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 - with the 2020 edition hosting 6 races in a nine-day period to complete the 2019/20 season. The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters executives were also discussing with government officials about hosting a round at Tempelhof.

When Eurovision came to Germany, the airport would have been the site of the contest if Berlin was chosen as the host city. Later, Düsseldorf was chosen.

The defunct airport is intended to be known as "Berlin Creative District", similar to Meatpacking District, Manhattan or Brompton Design District in Brompton, London. For instance, the former US Army officers' hotel will be altered to be a digital innovation center for startups and creative businesses, while a new visitor center was due to open in 2019.

In 2022, Tempelhof was used as the site for the festival Tempelhof Sounds, a three-day music event consisting of mainly alternative, indie and rock music. There were over 30,000 visitors on each day of the festival. Shortly after the festival concluded, it was confirmed that the event would return in 2023.

Former airlines and destinations
Most airlines moved to Tegel or Schönefeld in the years before Tempelhof closed down. When it was actually closed down in 2008 there were only scheduled flights from Brussels Airlines and Cirrus Airlines still operating from there.

Berlin Tempelhof also was an important base for air taxi services with the following operators flying from/to there: AAF Aviona Air, Air Service Berlin (scheduled sightseeing flights using a historic "raisin bomber" Douglas DC-3), AIRSHIP Air Service, Bizair Fluggesellschaft, Business Air Charter, Heli Unionair, Jet Club Deutschland Chartermanagement, Private Wings, Rotorflug, TAG Aviation and Windrose Air.

Accidents and incidents
On 12 June 1897, in one of the earliest recorded aircraft accidents, Friedrich Hermann Wölfert and his mechanic Robert Knabe were killed when Wölfert's lighter than air craft Deutschland caught fire at 200 m (670 ft) and crashed at Tempelhof Field.

On 29 April 1952, an Air France Douglas C-54A (registration F-BELI) operating a scheduled service from Frankfurt Rhein-Main Airport to Berlin Tempelhof came under sustained attack from two Soviet MiG-15 fighters while passing through one of the Allied air corridors over East Germany. Although the attack had severely damaged the plane, necessitating the shutdown of engines number three and four, the pilot in command of the aircraft managed to carry out a safe emergency landing at Tempelhof Airport.

A subsequent inspection of the aircraft's damage at Tempelhof revealed that it had been hit by 89 shots fired from the Soviet MiGs during the preceding air attack. There were no fatalities among the 17 occupants (six crew, 11 passengers) despite the severity of the attack. The Soviet military authorities defended this attack on an unarmed civilian aircraft by claiming the Air France plane was outside the air corridor at the time of attack.

On 19 January 1953, a Silver City Airways Bristol 170 Freighter Mark 21 (registration: G-AICM) operating a non-scheduled cargo flight from West Berlin crash-landed near Tempelhof Airport as a result of fuel starvation when bad weather at the destination forced it to return to Berlin. Although the accident damaged the aircraft beyond repair, both pilots survived.

In 1978, LOT Polish Airlines flight 165 was hijacked and forced to land at Tempelhof. The US military authorities who were in charge of Tempelhof during the Cold War era arrested the East German hijacker on arrival. Following the hijacker's arrest, the US authorities returned the aircraft, its crew and those passengers who wished to resume their journey to Poland.

In 1981, a LOT Polish Airlines Antonov AN-24 operating an internal scheduled service from Katowice to Gdańsk was hijacked en route and forced to land at Tempelhof. Jerzy Dygas, the hijacker, was on military service while taking over the aircraft. He was armed with a grenade and a single-shot pistol. The US military authorities arrested the hijacker on arrival and handed him over to the local police. At that time, he was expected to be sentenced to a $5 1/2$-year prison term under West German law. Following the hijacker's arrest, the US authorities released the aircraft, its crew and all 50 passengers to resume their flight to Gdańsk. On 26 June 2010, a private Socata TB 10 Tobago had to perform an emergency landing on the now closed Tempelhof Airport due to engine failure. It was on a sightseeing flight and the pilot was looking for a free space to land safely. The aircraft was occupied by the pilot and three passengers and had taken off from Tegel Airport. Upon consultation with air traffic control in Schönefeld, it was agreed to land on a Tempelhof runway. No one was injured during the emergency landing as the visitors of the now Tempelhofer Park scurried aside to make room for the TB 10, which came to a halt after a very short distance. Four days later, the Socata TB 10 Tobago was transported – with wings removed – by lorry back to Tegel airport. The Senate of Berlin now intends to prohibit sightseeing flights over Berlin by single-engine planes for safety reasons. It has been reported that the pilot had forgotten to switch over to the second fuel tank.

title: Berlin Tempelhof Airport


text:
Bedgrove

Bedgrove is one of the housing estates of the modern town of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, though it takes its name from a farm and hamlet that stood in the area until the area was cleared for building in the late 1950s. At the time it was built it was the largest housing estate of its kind in the country. The housing estate is on the south side of the town. The farm (and associated cottages) was where Pevensey Close now stands.

In the 2001 census the population of Bedgrove was 9,171 people.

Also the ancient village of Caldicot was thought to be situated approximately where Caldicot Close is today, hence the name of the new road.

Facilities
In the middle of Bedgrove, there are two churches, one Church of England called Church of the Holy Spirit, and one Roman Catholic Church, called Our Lady of Lourdes. There is also a Baptist church in Limes Avenue.

Bedgrove is served by Bedgrove Infant School, for children aged from three to seven, and Bedgrove Junior School, for children aged from seven to eleven. Both are foundation schools, which each take approximately 480 pupils.

On the southside of Bedgrove is Bedgrove Park, a large field with many football pitches, a community centre, a playground designed for 2-12 year olds and an all-weather pitch designed for youths to play football and netball.

In the heart of Bedgrove is Jansel Square, which consists of several take away restaurants (Chinese and Fish and Chips) and many shops including: Co-operative, Sue Ryder Care, Extra Care, McCoy's Fish & Chips, Jade Garden (Chinese Restaurant)William Hill, Tilbury's Butchers, Martin McColl's Newsagent (which includes a branch of the Post Office), a gift shop, and a café called The Coffee Bean. A new Sainsbury's Local store & Domino's Pizza recently opened next to the William Hill bookmakers, on 28 April 2014, as well as a Costa Coffee café next to the Martin's convenience store.

There is also a Pub named 'The Buckinghamshire Yeoman' in Jansel Square.

The Arriva Shires & Essex 'Pink Route' service 8 to Aylesbury serves Bedgrove Monday-Saturday, at a frequency of up to every 20 minutes, which runs via Broughton. Stops on this route serve Welbeck Avenue, Cambourne Avenue, Cam Mead and Long Meadow. For a Sunday bus service, Red Rose Travel operates the 501 service from Aylesbury to Watford which serves two stops in Bedgrove, on Cam Mead and Long Meadow.

Demography
At the 2001 UK census, the Bedgrove electoral ward had a population of 9,171. The ethnicity was 95.9% white, 0.9% mixed race, 2.4% Asian, 0.7% black and 0.1% other. The place of birth of residents was 92.6% United Kingdom, 1.1% Republic of Ireland, 2.1% other Western European countries, and 4.2% elsewhere. Religion was recorded as 77.8% Christian, 0.1% Buddhist, 1.2% Hindu, 0.2% Sikh, 0.1% Jewish, and 0.5% Muslim. 13.6% were recorded as having no religion, 0.3% had an alternative religion and 6.2% did not state their religion.

The economic activity of residents aged 16–74 was 45% in full-time employment, 14.7% in part-time employment, 8% self-employed, 1.5% unemployed, 2.9% students with jobs, 3% students without jobs, 16.1% retired, 4.8% looking after home or family, 2.5% permanently sick or disabled and 1.5% economically inactive for other reasons. The industry of employment of residents was 16.4% retail, 13.8% manufacturing, 5.8% construction, 13.7% real estate, 13.2% health and social work, 8.8% education, 5.8% transport and communications, 7.4% public administration, 2.5% hotels and restaurants, 6.4% finance, 0.7% agriculture and 5.5% other. Compared with national figures, the ward had a relatively high proportion of workers in finance and public administration. There were a relatively low proportion in agriculture, hotels and restaurants. Of the ward's residents aged 16–74, 22.8% had a higher education qualification or the equivalent, compared with 19.9% nationwide.

title: Bedgrove