Tempelhof Central Airport Tempelhof Central Airport ( TCA ) was a United States Military airfield in West Berlin , Germany between 1945 and 1994 . During its operational life , it was garrisoned by the United States Air Force , with units of the United States Army Berlin Brigade located within the facility . TCA was located in the northern part of the Tempelhof district of Berlin , about from the center of the city . It was bounded on the east by Oderstraße , on the north by Columbiadamm , on the west by Tempelhofer Damm , and on the south by the Tempelhof Freight Terminal , in the American Sector of West Berlin . Units . Air Force . The main USAF unit at Tempelhof was the 7350th Air Base Group under various designations : Other Major USAFE units at Tempelhof AB were : Tenant units included the 6912th Electronic Security Group , part of the Electronic Security Command , an organization belonging directly to Air Force Intelligence . History . The facility was named after the historic Tempelhof parade ground in the Berlin district of Tempelhof . Origins . Prior to World War II , TCA was acquired for use as a Royal Prussian parade and exercise ground by King Fredrick William I in 1721 . Tempelhof remained a parade ground until 1918 . From 1895 - 1918 field served also as a demonstration area for balloons , airships , and aircraft , including flights in 1908 by Orville Wright and his Wright Flyer . A German commercial airport was erected on the site in 1922 and a modern European international airport was established in 1934 . Ernst Sagebiel designed Tempelhof ' s futuristic airfield facilities and terminal 1934 - 1936 , and converted it into a major European and international airport . Tempelhof Airport officially opened in 1936 , with peak passenger traffic attained in 1938 - 1939 . Cold War . Germany did not use Tempelhof as a military airfield during World War II , except for occasional emergency landings by fighter aircraft . The airfield was seized by the Soviet Union Red Army in April , 1945 and turned over to the United States in July 1945 with the division of Berlin into occupation zones . TCA was established as an aerial port on 2 July 1945 , being designated Tempelhof Airdrome ( Code Number R - 95 ) . The first USAAF unit assigned to Templehof was the 715th Air Service Squadron , being transferred to the airfield on 2 July 1945 from Halle , Germany . This was quickly followed by the 473d Air Service Group , establishing headquarters on 5 July and assuming host duties . Reconstruction of the facility began on 3 July 1945 . The 852nd Engineer Aviation Battalion arrived at Tempelhof on 10 July 1945 and conducted the original repairs . The first USAAF flying unit assigned was the 301st Troop Carrier Squadron , with its ground echelon arriving on 4 July 1945 and beginning operational use in August . In September , Tempelhof began routine military passenger service as the Berlin center for the European Air Transport Service ( EATS ) until March 1948 . The first major Allied use of the airfield was for the Potsdam Conference , being held from July 16 to August 2 , 1945 . On 9 September 1946 it was renamed Tempelhof Army Air Base , and it supported the mission of the Office of the High Commissioner of Germany ( HICOG ) . It was redesignated Tempelhof Air Base on 9 November . The base also housed an air - sea rescue operations center when USAFE assumed the direct responsibilities of EATS on 20 December 1947 . With the formation of the United States Air Force in 1947 , Tempelhof became a USAF base . The United States Air Forces in Europe ( USAFE ) renamed the facility Tempelhof Air Force Base on 1 July 1948 ( the designation reverted to Tempelhof Air Base on 1 May 1950 ) . Soviet troops closed off all surface routes into West Berlin on 20 June 1948 , compelling the Western Allies to establish the greatest military airlift in history , the Berlin Airlift , flying millions of tons of fuel , clothing , and food into Tempelhof for the beleaguered West Berliners . Engineers constructed a new 6 , 000 - ft runway between July and September 1948 and another between September and October 1948 to accommodate the expanding requirements of the airlift . The last airlift transport touched down at Tempelhof on 30 September 1949 . In 1971 one of the pilots during the Berlin Airlift , and the original " Candy Bomber " , Gail Halvorsen , returned to Berlin as the commander of Tempelhof Central Airport . A civil aviation agreement allowed the major airlines to use the airport beginning on 22 May 1950 , and U . S . authorities turned over the north - east corner of the airport to the City of Berlin for recreational purposes in 1950 . A typical weekday in January 1952 saw three Pan Am DC - 4s and an Air France DC - 4 to Frankfurt , a PA DC - 4 and four BEA Dakotas to Hamburg , three BEA Dakotas to Hanover and one to Cologne , and 17 BEA flights a week to Düsseldorf . Air France had a DC - 4 to Munich and three a week to Nuremberg . In January 1962 , BEA had ten Viscounts a day to Cologne , Düsseldorf , Frankfurt , Hamburg , Hanover and Munich , and Pan Am had 27 DC - 6Bs a day to those cities and Nuremberg and Stuttgart . The first scheduled jets were Pan Am 727s in 1966 . USAFE renamed the facility Tempelhof Central Airport on 28 February 1958 and on 15 November 1959 administration of Tempelhof was transferred to Ramstein AB . On 1 September 1975 , all civil air traffic was transferred to Berlin Tegel Airport . Tempelhof was then used solely as a military airport until 1985 when Tempelhof Airways , a US - registered commuter airline , resumed commercial operations with a pair of Nord 262 commuter turboprops to secondary and tertiary destinations in West Germany not served by any scheduled carrier from Tegel at that time . With civil traffic routed to Tegel , TCA was used solely by U . S . military airlift traffic until the end of the Cold War . Return to German control . With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany , the presence of American forces in Berlin ended . The USAF 7350th Air Base Group at Tempelhof was inactivated on 29 January 1993 . In July 1994 , with President Clinton in attendance , the British , French , and American air and land forces in Berlin were inactivated in a ceremony on the Four Ring Parade field at Tempelhof in accordance with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany . The Western Allies returned a united city of Berlin to the unified German government . The U . S . Army closed its Berlin Army Aviation Detachment at TCA in August 1994 , ending a 49 - year American military presence in Berlin .