History

1945 - 1948: Fuhlsbüttel becomes "Hamburg Airport"

1945: After the capitulation of the German government, the Royal Air Force set up base at the airport, which had miraculously escaped any war damage. The installation of the new 'landlords' was accompanied by a change in nomenclature: Fuhlsbüttel was renamed "Hamburg Airport". Sovereignty over civil aviation, too, was in the joint hands of the Allies, who issued a proclamation on 20th September 1945 to the effect that no German was allowed to own or operate aircraft. The administration of Hamburg Airport also passed to the British army.
Civil aviation in Germany had fallen behind as a result of the wartime isolation, and new developments in air travel had by-passed Hamburg and the other German cities.

1946: The British occupying forces were naturally interested in fast connections between Hamburg and Great Britain, and so in 1946 they teamed up with British European Airways (BEA) and set up scheduled civil flights from the Air Force base in Fuhlsbüttel. As of 1st September, there were two flights a day on the London-Amsterdam-Hamburg-Berlin route.
The volume of traffic grew, and Fuhlsbüttel finally became part of the network of European airways again. This prompted the Royal Air Force to transfer administrative responsibility for Hamburg Airport to the Civil Aviation Board, CAB. At the same time, plans were in the pipeline to make improvements that would enable the airport to cope with the increasing amount of traffic. Thus air traffic control at the airport was brought up to date: the runways were equipped with lighting that showed incoming planes the way about a kilometre before the start of the runway.

1947/48: Plans were drawn up to install a system of landing instruments in 1951, and these plans were delivered to the city's department of civil engineering in the winter of 1947/48 with orders for the work to begin.

1948: On 25th June, the American military governor gave the order to set up an airlift to supply West Berlin with essential provisions. While the American planes took off mainly from Frankfurt and Wiesbaden, the Royal Air Force flew through the northern air corridor from Wunstorf, Faßberg, Lübeck, Celle and Hamburg. The work on the No.1 runway at Fuhlsbüttel, which had just begun, was now pushed ahead at top speed. 1,400 labourers were put to work to ensure that the runway was at least ready by the end of the year so that it could be used for the Berlin Airlift.

back to overview