Tempelhof may become Germany's 'biggest refugee shelter'

Berlin may have finally found a use for Tempelhof airport, the vast, iconic building that ceased operation in 2008, but has only been put to temporary use since. The city administration is considering turning the iconic structure - scene of the Berlin air lift during the Cold War and once described by architect Sir Norman Foster as the "mother of all airports" - into one of the biggest refugee shelters in Europe.

The Deutsche Lebens-Rettungs Gesellschaft (DLRG) ("German Life-Saving Organization"), a disaster aid organization, posted a call for help on its Facebook page on Wednesday in which it revealed that Berlin state's health and social affairs agency (LaGeSo) had submitted a request to the Berlin Interior Ministry asking for the installation of a major refugee center for "around 3,000 to 4,000 places" on the grounds of the old airport. That would make the airport one of the biggest refugee shelters in Europe.

"The originally responsible health and social affairs agency (LaGeSo) and the state crisis team is no longer capable of getting the situation under control," said the Facebook post, signed by the DLRG's Berlin Vice President Udo Rosentreter.

Part of Tempelhof's office space is now leased by Berlin's police force, but otherwise the building is still largely empty, while in the past seven years the hangars have mainly been used to host cultural events, like the Berlin music festival and the Bread and Butter trade fair.

Last Friday, local Berlin newspapers reported that the airport was being considered as a new branch of the LaGeSo to deal with housing and registering the thousands of refugees expected to arrive in the German capital.

LaGeSo's struggles to cope with the influx of refugees in Berlin attracted ugly headlines in early August, when a heat wave and a shortage of water at its headquarters in the Moabit district left many refugees desperate. Scuffles between refugees and security personnel broke out, while many Berliners brought food and drink.

Avoiding homelessness

The "Berliner Zeitung" newspaper reported that a coordination team set up by the city administration to administer the influx of refugees had viewed the Tempelhof building on Tuesday.

The Berlin Health and Social Affairs Ministry, responsible for LaGeSo, did not deny it was considering the option, saying in an emailed statement to DW, "No state-owned property is exempt from assessment - including the airport building at Tempelhof."

The ministry also said that Berlin's coordination team has been working under "high pressure" for the past two weeks to deal with the "growing challenges" of the number of refugees in the capital. "The aim is to avoid homelessness," it said.

The statement offered some veiled criticism of the federal government's crisis managment, and the pressure this was putting on local authorities: "Against the backdrop of the federal government's persistent raising of refugee numbers, we have to find additional ways to create shelter opportunities," it said.

A statement to DW from a Berlin state interior ministry spokesman confirmed that it had received the request regarding Tempelhof, and that a meeting had taken place on Monday. But the authority would not be drawn on whether the airport would be used.

"The interior administration [...] made assurances that it would use its resources to help, to its biggest possible capacity, by setting up beds through technical units," the spokesman said, before adding that it "could not take over the complete coordination of refugee shelters."

'Emergency solution'

Christian Hanke, mayor of Berlin's Mitte district, has already expressed his support for the idea of housing refugees at the old airport. "It is an emergency solution, but it is unavoidable," he told the Berliner Zeitung, "There is a lot of room in the hangars."

The city is also looking at other options for housing refugees, including the 10-story headquarters of a former state bank, another empty administrative building that is due to be auctioned.

Meanwhile, the DLRG's call on social media highlighted the need for volunteers. "We are looking for helpers who are prepared to make themselves available for several days, possibly for shift work," the DLRG's Facebook post said. "Various positions have to be filled in a refugee shelter, such as e.g. registration, material distribution, food distribution, administrative work and much more - after the shelter itself has been furnished."