It’s been a long and sometimes painful journey through a jungle of misconception and prejudice. Both seem to die as hard as any of the bad habits the world so happily cultivates. Eventually it looks as though Frankfurt – Hessen’s largest city (but not it’s capital, that’s Wiesbaden, you didn’t know that, did you?) has managed to shed its unjustified reputation of being nothing but a money-minded financial hub. See for yourselves how winsome it can be.
The dream of flying is perhaps nearly as old as mankind itself. We do not know for how many casualties innumerable trial-and-error experiments are responsible. The myth of Daedalus, the sly old Greek and his boisterous son Icarus, became the stuff for serious text-book entries. With a merciless sun gradually sizzling away Icarus’s wings of wax, the poor devil plummeted right into the sea – having been robbed of life-saving aerodynamics. In reality, crash tests with astonishingly inventive contraptions operated by bright, adventurous minds formed a never-ending chain of often fatal accidents over the course of time. Thanks to the courage and relentless efforts by these pioneers, aircraft have become a fast, comfortable and comparatively safe means of transport.
Tempelhof Airport was closed for public air traffic in October 2008. 85 years earlier, in October 1923, ‘the first commercial airport worldwide’ was inaugurated by the German Reich’s Ministry of Transport; the initial route operated to Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad) in former East Prussia. The first plane of the newly founded “Deutsche Luft Hansa” had its maiden voyage from Berlin to Zurich in 1926 and even gigantic Zeppelins majestically raised from the vast Tempelhof airfield. By the 1930s, it had developed into Europe’s busiest airport – ranging ahead of Paris, Amsterdam and London. But Tempelhof is unforgotten for the dramatic role it was to play in post-war Germany.
If a long-hatched childhood dream is ever to come true, entrepreneurial reason mostly isn’t the proper leverage to make it happen. Frederik Braun and his twin brother Gerrit still bravely ventured out on a project not only demanding a vast amount of courage, enthusiasm, utmost technical aptitude, congenial logistics and never-ending perseverance – but also a mighty portion of disregard towards the shaky economical outlook and the financial risks lurking virtually everywhere. A browse through a model railway shop in Switzerland’s capital Zurich back in 2000, triggered the idea for what was to become the largest and most successful exhibition of model railways worldwide.
As is frequently the case, the spirit of a new era is ushered in by initiative of one committed individual. When it comes to the history of German spa-ing, it is said to have been a progressive physician by the name of Samuel Gottlieb Vogel, who had triggered off the lasting success story of sea-side health treatments. The healing effects of a coastal climate and the invigorating properties of salty seawater on skins in desperate need of airing, were promoted by him. And, in order to corroborate his cause, Vogel convinced nobility to act as prominent supporters and forerunners, making Heiligendamm with its tideless shores the premier German spa resort and Friedrich Franz I of Mecklenburg-Schwerin the first-ever guest to use it. That was back in 1793.
