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During 2022 excavations in the area of Berlin's Molkenmarkt - a historic plaza and the city's oldest market place - archaeologists discovered Berlin's oldest street, a Bohlendamm (corduroy road or log road). Two years later they made another great discovery - this time a series of small white clay figurines of Christian saints. What would they find, though, should they start digging under what is now Berlin's largest public park, Tempelhofer Feld?

Well, apart from the unexploded World War Two ordnance which is almost certain still to be lurking somewhere under the asphalt roads and spreading wide meadows, they'd probably come up with a lot of old rubbish. Literally so. To built Berlin's most famous inner-city airport, Flughafen Tempelhof (later known as Zentralflughafen Tempelhof) tens of thousands of large cartloads of Berlin's garbage helped level the ground. Something far more natural, yet even more unappetising enabled the airport builders to prevent dust clouds from building on the site.

To find out who, why and using what ingenious methods built Berlin's favourite - even if former - airport; and what the Crusaders had to do with it, listen to this episode of your "Berlin Companion Podcast". A podcast about everything you never even knew you wanted to know about Berlin:-)

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Music for the show by ...

CRUSADERS, BLIMPS AND WHOLE LOTTA RUBBISH: HOW BERLIN'S LEGENDARY AIRPORT, FLUGHAFEN TEMPELHOF, WAS BUILT

Berlin Companion Podcast