BERLIN, Oct 28: Germans will bid a mournful goodbye this week to Tempelhof Airport, the historic hub of the Berlin Airlift which is closing after more than 80 tumultuous years of service.

Tempelhof, which British architect Norman Foster calls “the mother of all airports” for its size and beauty, is shutting down as Berlin finally trades its current three for a central site on its southeastern outskirts in 2011.

The final take-offs are planned on Thursday night during a farewell gala in Tempelhof’s cavernous arrivals hall with 800 guests including Mayor Klaus Wowereit, who campaigned for the airport’s closure.

But some Berliners say they will still not let Tempelhof go without a fight and have organised candlelight vigils for the beloved landmark just south of the city centre.

Late on Monday, about 400 people dressed in black, some of them perched on baggage belts, denounced what they called “the historic shame for Berlin and Germany” in mothballing the home of so much local history.

The airport opened in 1926 and a monumental terminal built by the Nazis a decade later as a majestic portal to the capital of the Third Reich still ranks as the largest building in western Europe and an architectural masterpiece.

In the 1948-49 Airlift, the Americans and their Allies ferried tonnes of supplies in an unprecedented mobilisation to save free West Berlin as Stalin blockaded the population of 2.5 million and tried to starve it into submission.

After the Berlin Wall was built and West Berlin became an isolated island suspended in communist East Germany, flights from Tempelhof were a ticket out.

But since the fall of the Wall in 1989 and national unification a year later, Tempelhof has become outdated and its central location has raised concerns about the safety of planes flying above densely-populated districts.

Last year some 350,000 passengers flew out of Tempelhof, versus 19 million from Berlin’s other two major airports, Tegel on the northern fringe and Schoenefeld. A last-ditch referendum to save Tempelhof failed in April.

The last flights on Thursday will be in a vintage Douglas DC-3 dating from the Airlift that will perform a swoop over the capital, and a commercial run, bound for the southwestern city of Mannheim.

In the meantime, Berliners are flocking to the airport to take photographs of the sprawling airfields, the crescent-shaped terminal and its bare-bones 1960s decor.

It is unclear what will happen with the enormous site, which is listed as a historic monument and cannot be torn down.

“We are looking at ideas for the medium and long term,” said Manfred Kuehne, one of six local officials dealing with the future of Tempelhof.

The city is accepting proposals until next January. Ideas from investors include a biotech park, film studios, a “green” residential development and a mammoth solar energy centre.

Berliners have been even more inventive, calling for a giant library, a huge sports hall, an aviation museum or the world’s biggest skateboard track.

And a group of architects has enviseaged a central zoo for thousands of animals with cages mounted on the runways.

But the cash-strapped capital will have to look high and low for financing for any viable idea.

“The boom that followed unification ended a long time ago and the international financial crisis will not exactly facilitate the development of Tempelhof,” the daily Der Tagesspiegel wrote.—AFP