Hamburg Airport celebrated its 110th birthday:on January 10, 1911, the first airship hangar was built near the village of Fuhlsbüttel. Zeppelins are quickly replaced by airplanes.
by Axel Franz
Hamburg, January 10, 1911, a Tuesday:merchants and politicians meet to create the basis for a project whose turbulent development they can hardly imagine:they found Hamburger Luftschiffhallen GmbH. This is also the beginning of the history of Hamburg Airport. However, men like shipowner Alfred Ballin and businessman Edmund Siemers are not yet thinking about airplanes. They are enthusiastic about the idea of a count:Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Almost a year earlier, on March 6, 1910, the airship designer and pilot had given a speech in the Hanseatic city and advocated transferring Hamburg's leading role in shipping to airships as well. With success. The starting capital of 685,000 Reichsmark for the Luftschiffhallen GmbH comes from many sponsors and mainly consists of share certificates with a value of 1,000 Reichsmark each.
Airship hangar at the gates of Hamburg
The company's first project is the construction of an airship hangar with space for two zeppelins. The location:a 44.8-hectare wet meadow area near the village of Fuhlsbüttel just outside Hamburg. A year later the hall is standing. There will be a folk festival for the inauguration and the 148 meter long "Viktoria Luise" will be the first airship to dock. It doesn't take long for airplanes to start using the landing field. In 1913 the flight school of Karl Caspar, an aircraft pioneer, settled here. Further halls, workshops and tank facilities are built in Fuhlsbüttel. But in 1914, the First World War halted the upswing. The military takes control of the airfield. After the end of the war, the halls are destroyed or confiscated.
Line service to Berlin
In 1919 civil aviation returned to Fuhlsbüttel. In February, Deutsche Luftreederei GmbH (DLR), a forerunner of today's Lufthansa, is the first airline to start scheduled services. Converted war machines fly on the route to Berlin, which can only carry about five passengers. At a speed of 150 km/h, passengers and pilots sit outdoors in the double-deckers - equipped with aviator caps, goggles and a scarf. Other domestic German and European connections to Scandinavia, England and Holland will soon follow. They cause the number of passengers to rise enormously:from 5,087 in 1923 to 17,350 in 1924 and 57,194 in 1937.
First terminal building opens
Hundreds of visitors come to Fuhlsbüttel for a flight day at Pentecost 1931.In the 1920s, the airport boomed - based on the traffic volume at the time. There are no paved slopes at this time. The machines roll over grassy areas that are kept short by sheep. In 1929 the first terminal building for passengers and freight opened in Fuhlsbüttel. The administration is also located there, a restaurant and a viewing platform are being built. From 1935 the site was expanded in a south-westerly direction by almost 100 hectares to 220 hectares and connected to local public transport. Baghdad is one of the 22 destinations served from Hamburg. The 4,050-kilometer journey takes almost 24 hours with stops and is the longest scheduled flight route in the world at the time. Then another war interrupts the development of civil aviation. The Luftwaffe camouflaged the facilities in Fuhlsbüttel with huge mats and trees so well that they survived the Second World War largely unscathed.
Concrete runway for the "raisin bombers"
In May 1945, the British Royal Air Force took over the airport and reopened it for scheduled civil traffic in 1946:Hamburg was back on the international flight schedule. In 1948, a 2,260 meter long runway was concreted in a hurry in order to be able to use it for the "raisin bombers" airlift to cut off Berlin. The British remain the hosts in Fuhlsbüttel until October 1, 1950, when they hand over the administration to the Germans.
Civil aviation is rapidly gaining momentum again. In the 1950s there were already direct overseas connections from Hamburg. Destinations such as New York, Nairobi and Hong Kong are on the flight plan. Deutsche Lufthansa opened a new chapter in 1955:the newly founded company started scheduled services with a flight from Fuhlsbüttel. The Convair 340 aircraft has space for around 50 passengers and flies at a speed of 450 km/h. At the same time, an aircraft hangar is being built in the southern part of the Hamburg site, the predecessor of today's Lufthansa Technik.
Jet propulsion replaces the propeller
The landing of a Boeing 707 from the US airline Pan Am in Hamburg in 1959 heralded a new era in aviation:the jet engine replaced the propeller. Flights are becoming faster and cheaper, and the number of connections is increasing. Airplanes will soon be part of everyday transport, even for vacation trips. In 1961, Hamburg Airport counted more than a million passengers a year for the first time. In 2019 there will be around 13 million - only because of the corona pandemic will there be a slump of almost 75 percent in 2020. The old building from 1929 can no longer cope with the onslaught and is being expanded. The freight area gets its own halls. At the end of the 1960s, the airport was designed for four million passengers.
Expansion reaches its limits
With increasing flight operations and densely populated areas in the area, noise is becoming a problem. Bonuses for quieter machines and protective measures such as tighter windows in apartments in the area should remedy the situation. However, Fuhlsbüttel does not seem very suitable for further growth. Politicians from Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein agree on building a new airport in Kaltenkirchen. The first plans came out in 1969, but public protests and arguments about financing slowed down the project until it was officially abandoned in 1983. However, the number of passengers is constantly increasing, the airport has to expand, but can hardly expand. Since then it has been growing on the existing area. In 1993, another terminal, today's number 2, begins operations.
Million conversion for the new millennium
Glass and steel characterize the look of the new airport building.At the turn of the millennium, the airport has almost ten million passengers a year and is renamed "Hamburg Airport". The Hanseatic city brings the first private co-owners to Flughafen GmbH, which launches a massive expansion program with a financial volume of around 350 million euros in 2001:HAM 21. The former reception building from 1929 has to go. The new 6,300 square meter passenger Terminal 1 will be completed by 2005. Three years later, on December 4, 2008, the "Airport Plaza" will be inaugurated. It connects both terminals and presents itself as a shopping mile with around 40 shops and numerous gastronomic offers. It also contains the central security checkpoint, which since September 2010 has also included the controversial body scanner on a trial basis.
With the S-Bahn to the city
At the end of 2008, an S-Bahn station will be opened in the basement of the plaza. After years of discussion, the airport will be given a fast connection to the main train station and the city center. With the opening of another parking deck and a hotel, HAM 21 was completed in 2009, and the airport, with around 15,000 employees, was fit for its around 15 million passengers a year. This puts Hamburg Airport at the top in the north and fifth nationwide.
However, this is not the end of the expansion. In 2016, a new air freight center will open, which was built on a previous parking area in the southern part of the site. This doubles the capacity to up to 150,000 tons of freight per year. And the airport now also has a new name:Hamburg Airport Helmut Schmidt - in memory of the former chancellor and honorary citizen of Hamburg.