Wo ist Adlerhof ?

[G._Jacobs]

Hello Friends,

Can anyone tell me the location of the Adlerhof aerodrome where the D-Trials were held? Does the site still exist or was it swallowed up by later development in Berlin?

Thanks,
Gary

[rammjaeger]

Gary,

please look at

http://home.t-online.de/home/mercedes-druck/mdflie.htm

I have scanned maps of the airfield
too but not enough time to search for these maps today.

VBR
Rammjaeger

[jempie]

hello...
As you noticed from Rammjaegers answer and reference site the site of the airfield became/becomes an industrial site...also natural park in development for more!(If you use coogle search engines you shall find some sites which gives on since 2000 "projects are going on to give the area new destinations as natural park, furthermore "Silicon valley" exhibition spaces, seems already to exist on the former Johannisthal airfield site. ILA 2000 (Air and Space exhibition) was held still there! I accept until 2000 planes could still land on an airfield (Adlershof) there ?

In fact September 1910 the airfield was inaugurated
of Johannisthal...left on the map I have is situated Johannisthal...the right side of the map (other side of airfield was situated "Adlershof"!
(I sent this plan drawing by direct mail!)
In fact the airfield had two zones: the left one with a small size airship shed for Parseval or Gross...
Later +/- 1913 a bigger airship shed was constructed there to shelter the Zeppelins!
1912 w<hen the Schwaben visited the airfield, they needed to use a "transportable tent shed" to shelter her! 1912 there stood however 2 smaller airship sheds...one was apparently enlarged to become the Zeppelinshed, following my observations at hand of contemporary photos.
The second division of Johannisthal airfield was the side to "Adlershof" where you had the airfield...
To "Adlershof" you had the "Deutschen Wright plane construction plant..around the airfield than the tribunes (3) and plane sheds (some 20!).The Albatros Werke factory (1910) was at the side of Johannisthal.
I hope with the photos from Ramjaeger you may get an idea, how it was all looks liking?

VBR

Jempie.

[jempie]

Hello!
Little correction :
JOHANNISTHAL was inaugurated SEPTEMBER 1909 not 1910!
Sorry!

VBR
Jempie.

[G._Jacobs]

Rammjaeger and Jempie,

Thank you both for the information. I learned not only the location, but some history as well! It is much appreciated.

Thanks Again,
Gary

[Cigogne]

Adlershof with an "s" translates basically to "Eagles court" an apt name for an aviation facility, don't you think?

Cigogne

Just to add a few more facts on the Johannisthal/Adlershof airfield:

When build, the area was at best in the suburbs of Berlin - actually Johannisthal (which was a foundation from the time of Frederic the Great) and Adlershof - which had this name even before the installation of the airfield - were small villages just outside of Berlin.

The area originally was a wood. Pioneers of the Eisenbahn Regiment I were tasked to cut the trees and straighten the ground, an undertaking strated in December 1908.

The official opening of the airfield was on September 26, 1909. Jempie has already given a lot of details of the early history.

After WW I, the flying activities soon shifted to the Tempelhofer Feld, closer to the city center. Here the famous Tempelhof airport was build. however, Adlershof remained the site of the DVL - the Deutsche Versuchanstalt fuer Luftfahrt, something like Germany´s NACA. Too, a shed in the airfield was used (already from teh days before WW I) to store historically interesting aircraft. This collection, together with the Boeblingen collection later formed the basis for the Deutsche Luftfahrtausstellung at the Lehrter Bahnhof, which before WW II was the world´s largest aeronautical exhibition.

The DVL remained at Adlershof until the collapse of the Third Reich.

After WW II, the Adlershof site was located directly at the border between East and West Berlin, which in this area was defined by the Teltower Kanal waterway. In "order to protect socialism", the East Germans did leave the airfield area basically untouched - it also was useful to control the movement of the own population towards the border of West berlin, I would guess, as the airfield was largely an open area...

As already stated by others, the area has now been developed into a business park, a development starting after the german reunification. If I´m not wrong, the development started around 1996.

there were efforts before to save the historic location, in the form of an Association called "Gesellschaft zur Bewahrung von Staetten Deutscher Luftfahrtgeschichte e.V." - a name difficult to translate, as only Germans can invent something like that. When all efforts finally failed, the Association arranged a Farewell festival/Dinner before the construction started.

One final effort centered around the "Fliegergaststaette Tolinski", an early restaurant in the are, whose owner collected bits and pieces of various less successful flights (the Berliners used the name "Bruchmuseum" *(crash museum) for it, which may be the best description anyway. I have no idea whether these efforts were successful, as I left Germany around that time...

Finally, the ILA 2000 was NOT at Adlershof. The location was the (former East German) airport at Berlin Schoenefeld, which is less than 10 km to the south of Adlershof.

The attachment is a newer map of the area, where

- the blue arrow shows the site of the airfield between Johannisthal and Adlershof
- the green arrow (left upper corner) shows the later Tempelhof airport
- the red arrow shows the "Teltower Canal", wher the Berlin Wall was situated in that area
- the black arrow shows the direction to Schoenefeld airport, where ILA 2000 took place...

Volker

And for a historical comparison, see the plan of Johannisthal airfield in Summer ´14 below. Note how the "U" or "lying C" shape of the airfield fits into the free area marked by the blue arrow in the post above.

Volker

[G._Jacobs]

Hello All,

Volker...I suppose the "crash museum" had lots of material to work with over the years.

I think it is correct that Adlershof was the site of Reinhard's crash just after Goering had put on an acrobatic show with the same aircraft.

It is sad that a place with so much history has been sacrificed to "progress." It reminds me of a small hangar that was torn down a few years ago on the edge of Lambert Field in St.Louis.

Charles Lindbergh took delivery of a new custom-built plane in California and flew it cross-country. He stopped in St.Louis for a few days and was feted by his benefactors. It was here that the plane was inscibed with its moniker "Spirit of St.Louis." From there he flew on to New York, and then non-stop to Paris and into the history books.

I guess only we aviation nuts care about such things...

Thanks,
Gary

PS: Cigogne...thanks for the correction...omitting the "s" was a typo...Gary *