Tempelhof

Coordinates: 52°28′N 13°23′E / 52.467°N 13.383°E / 52.467; 13.383

Tempelhof
Town hall
Coat of arms
Location of Tempelhof in Tempelhof-Schöneberg and Berlin
Founded	about 1200
Area
- Total	12.2 km2 (4.7 sq mi)
Population (2008-12-31)
- Total	54,382
- Density	4,458/km2 (11,546.2/sq mi)

Tempelhof is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. It is the location of the former Tempelhof Airport. The Tempelhof district is located in the southern part of the city. Before Berlin's 2001 administrative reform, the area of Tempelhof, together with the localities of Mariendorf, Marienfelde, and Lichtenrade, consistituted a borough of its own, also called Tempelhof. These districts grew from historic villages founded in the early 13th century in the course of the German Ostsiedlung.

History

Tempelhove was first mentioned in a 1247 deed issued at Walkenried Abbey as a Komturhof ("commander's court", the smallest holding entity of a military order) of the Knights Templar who were expelled from Palestine. The center of the settlement, consisting of the church and the original estate, was fortified and originally completely surrounded by water. The Templars were joined by 15 families of landless farmers' sons from the Rhine, who couldn't inherit any estate from their parents' possessions due to an over-fragmentation of their estate. Legates of the Templars offered them fertile soil and the protection of Tempelhove's stronghold.

After Pope Clement V had officially abolished the order in 1312, the Knights of St. John (Johanniter) backed by Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg took over the villages of Tempelhof, Mariendorf and Marienfelde and in 1435 sold their estates to the city of Berlin. The northern parts of Tempelhof were incorporated as Berlin's Tempelhofer Vorstadt in 1861 and later became part of the Kreuzberg borough.

Today, the former Komturei is a chain of parks, called Bosepark, Kleiner Park, Alter Park and Franckepark. Some of them still have ponds that were part of the inartificial moat surrounding the village's center. One of them, the Krumme Pfuhl, located in the Franckepark, after being turned into public swimming baths in the 19th century, has completely dried out and is now an enclosed deer park.

The original church, built from glacial boulders, was destroyed in the second world war and was replaced with one made of smaller paving stones and having a timber-frame tower.

Gallery

Lehnepfuhl in the Kleiner Park

The deer park that was once the Krumme Pfuhl

Village church as it looks today

Sister Cities

• Charleston, South Carolina, USA
• Nahariya, Israel
• London Borough of Barnet, England
• Amstelveen, The Netherlands

See also

• Rauenberg
• Tempelhof Airport

External links

• Media related to Tempelhof at Wikimedia Commons

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