Article

This is an original article as printed in the Guardian Weekly which is suitable for advanced comprehension classes written by Jess Smee in Berlin.

Resting on his walking stick, Wolfgang Vogt took a last look at the airport that saved his life. For millions of Germans, this monolithic limestone terminal with its cavernous check-in hall was just a city airport, a transit point in the busy endeavour of getting from A to B. But to Vogt and a dwindling band of the old guard, this was more than a traffic hub. It was a lifeline, a marooned city's link to the outside world.

"Without Tempelhof we would have starved," said Vogt, who was 15 when the Berlin airlift started in 1948, "It was our saviour. We were surrounded by the Soviets; we were shot at from all sides."

This made the last call for flights from the airport at the end of October a moving affair. As the departures board flickered for the final time, Vogt held up a homemade "danke America" sign.

For the grand finale, two 1940s planes - an American Douglas DC3 and a German Junkers Ju52 - took off before midnight, leaving nostalgic Berliners to dwell on the airport's role over eight decades of German history. With an airstrip dating from 1927, the vast building, once the world's largest airport, was built by the Nazis, using forced labourers, between 1936 and 1941.

At the end of the second world war it became the gateway for a non-stop stream of aircraft bringing more than 2m tonnes of goods to the stranded city, turning it into a cold war icon.

When the Berlin Wall split the city the air link became the safest way of travelling out of west Berlin. "I remember meeting my wife here after she came from western Germany in the 70s," said Paul Billstein standing outside the snack bar. "This airport may have negative Nazi connections but it is also linked to many positive personal memories.

He was one of those who voted in April against closing Tempelhof, a vote that failed because of low turn out. In the political cross fire, even the chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the tabloid newspaper Bild threw their weight behind saving the airport.

But Berlin city authorities pressed ahead with their plan. Officials point out that Tempelhof, one of Berlin's three air hubs, has low traffic and is surrounded by densely populated neighbourhoods. Its losses of more than $13m every year proved too heavy a burden for a city in debt.

Glossary

a dwindling band

(noun) a group of people who are diminishing in number

to dwell on something

(verb) to think about something very much

to throw one's weight behind something

(expression) to decide to support a campaign, new idea etc.

to press ahead with something

(phrasal verb) to continue doing something

Questions

The questions below are divided into three groups - before, during and after reading the above article.

Before reading

This article is about an airport in Berlin. Work in small groups.

• Look at the words below from the text. Which period in European history do you think the article is about? What do you know about this era?
  America, Berlin airlift, Berlin wall, Berliners, cold war, Soviets, starve, stranded city
• To view a contemporary newsreel about the airlift if you have internet access go to http://tiny.cc/ubNsZ.

Vocabulary from the article. Match the following phrases with one of the definitions which follow.

1. A lifeline is ...
2. A gateway is ...
3. An air link is ...
4. An airlift is ...
5. An icon is ...
6. A stream of aircraft is ...

1. an operation to take food to an area by plane; often done in times of danger.
2. many planes arriving one after the other.
3. a famous thing which people admire as a symbol of an idea.
4. something which a person depends on for survival.
5. a place which you can go through to reach a much larger place.
6. a connection between two places by air.

While reading

Read the first three paragraphs of the article and answer the following questions.

1. How does Wolfgang Vogt feel about Tempelhof closing? Why?
2. What did missions of other Germans think about the airport?
3. What does the airport terminal look like?
4. How old was Vogt at the time of the airlift?
5. According to Vogt, what would have happened without Tempelhof?
6. How does Vogt show his feelings about the airport on its last day?

Read the rest of the article. Complete these sentences about the history of Tempelhof airport.

1. The airport first started with ...
2. At one point Tempelhof was ...
3. The Nazis built the airport using ...
4. Tempelhof became a cold war icon because ...
5. The airport was the safest way of leaving Berlin after ...
6. The idea of keeping Tempelhof open was supported by ...
7. Tempelhof is situated in an area which is ...
8. The authorities were keen to close the airport because ...

Imagine that you live in Berlin. Would you vote for or against closing the Tempelhof airport? Discuss your opinions with a partner with reference to the article.

After reading

Crossword and collocation search. Complete the crossword with nouns from paragraphs four to eight of the article. Put the words in the singular. Look back at the text. Which adjectives or nouns are used in front of these words?