Tempelhof

Tempelhof
Quarter of Berlin
Ullsteinhaus
Tempelhof
Coordinates
Administration
Country Germany
State Berlin
City Berlin
Borough Tempelhof-Schöneberg
Basic statistics
Area 12.2 km2 (4.7 sq mi)
Elevation 50 m  (164 ft)
Population 54,382  (30 June 2008)
 - Density 4,458 /km2 (11,545 /sq mi)
Founded 1210
Other information
Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Licence plate B
Postal codes (nr. 0703) 12101, 12103, 12105, 12109, 12099, 12279

Tempelhof is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. It is the location of the former Tempelhof Airport, one of the earliest commercial airports in the world. It is now deserted and shows as a blank spot on maps of Berlin. Attempts are being made to save the still-existing buildings.

The Tempelhof district is located in the south-central part of the city. Before Berlin's 2001 administrative reform, the area of Tempelhof, together with the localities of Mariendorf, Marienfelde, and Lichtenrade, constituted a borough of its own, also called Tempelhof. These districts grew from historic villages founded in the early 13th century in the course of the German Ostsiedlung.

Contents

History

Tempelhove was first mentioned in a 1247 deed issued at Walkenried Abbey as a Komturhof (commander's court, the smallest holding entity of a military order) of the Knights Templar who were expelled from Palestine. The center of the settlement, consisting of the church and the original estate, was fortified and originally completely surrounded by water. The Templars were joined by 15 families of landless farmers' sons from the Rhine, who couldn't inherit any estate from their parents' possessions due to an over-fragmentation of their estate. Legates of the Templars offered them fertile soil and the protection of Tempelhove's stronghold.

After Pope Clement V had officially abolished the order in 1312, the Knights of St. John (Johanniter) backed by Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg took over the villages of Tempelhof, Mariendorf and Marienfelde and in 1435 sold their estates to the city of Berlin.

In the early 19th century, Tempelhof was still a village outside Berlin proper and was the goal of country excursions for the citizens of Berlin.[1] The northern parts of Tempelhof were incorporated as Berlin's Tempelhofer Vorstadt in 1861 and later became part of the Kreuzberg borough.

Today, the former commandry (German: Komturei) is a chain of parks, called Bosepark, Kleiner Park, Alter Park and Franckepark. Some of them still have ponds that were part of the artificial moat surrounding the village's center. One of them, the Krumme Pfuhl, located in the Franckepark, after being turned into public swimming baths in the 19th century, has completely dried out and is now an enclosed deer park.

The original church, built from glacial boulders, was destroyed in the second world war and was replaced with one built of ashlar or dressed stone and having a timber-frame tower.

Gallery

Sister cities

See also

References

  1. ^ See Theodor Fontane's Schach von Wuthenow.

External links

Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Berlin-Tempelhof Tempelhof] at Wikimedia Commons