Why is Germany’s main airport in Frankfurt rather than Berlin?
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there is no “main airport” in any official way.
Frankfurt is simply the largest airport because it has developed as such in the last decades.
There was plenty of space to expand around it and its in a very central location both in Germany and in the EU.
that central location is also very important here as Frankfurt airport has both a large Autobahn and multiple train tracks passing by.
But overall its all a matter of where they had the space to go bigger.
Cause germany was divided until 1990. Berlin was deep inside the Socialist, UDSSR aligned Eastern germany. Also Western Germany only had Westberlin and only Cityspace, no place to really build a big airport.
They just recently built a big new Airport, which has made the News for its shitshow and long delays.
Also Big Airport are where the most people live or where its convenient for the airlines, not where the capital is.
US eg. has its biggest Airports in Chicago and Atlanta, i think, while Washington DC Airport ist not really that big.
Commercial and trade center =/= capital city.
Many examples such as Istanbul/ankara, New York / Washington DC, etc…
When airports developed, Berlin was still divided in West Berlin and East Berlin (GDR). There was just no space for an expansion of the airport, because West Berlin was surrounded by the GDR. And GDR’s capitol East Berlin was to underdeveloped to build a big airport and nobody would like to fly to the GDR either.
All of Germany’s major metro areas have large international airports. It’s not like travelers to Berlin are expected to fly to Frankfurt then take the train to Berlin.
The airport in Frankfurt is just *exceptionally* large, which can happen for lots of different reasons. It’s in an area with lots of business and industry. It is also centrally located and is the hub for Lufthansa, Germany’s major airline. Lufthansa was originally created in Berlin but moved to the Frankfurt area after WWII because Berlin was quasi-occupied territory until the fall of the USSR.
But even leaving aside historical quirks like that, which airports get mega-huge can be kind of hard to predict. The busiest airport in the US, and in fact the world, is in Atlanta. Nothing about Atlanta’s size, economy, or surroundings suggests that should be the case. It just happens to be *the* main hub of one of the biggest airlines in the world.
It isn’t. Main is just the river flowing through the city of Frankfurt. There is another Frankfurt along the river Oder.
If you look at where Frankfurt is compared to where Berlin is, it makes some sense. Berlin is in east Germany proper. From 1949-1990, Germany was divided and West Berlin was an island in a sea of east Germany. For that reason, the west German capital was moved from Berlin to Bonn. Berlin simply did not have enough space for a big international airports. Frankfurt has multiple big international airports aside from Frankfurt, among them Hamburg, Stuttgart, Munich, Cologne and Düsseldorf.
Now Berlin also has a big international airport, and there are others in the east as well.
So why Frankfurt? Three main factors:
1) Frankfurt is located fairly centrally in both Germany and in Europe. It’s easy to get to most other important places in a very reasonable amount of time. There are two big motorways running past Frankfurt airport, multiple train tracks and such. Therefore, Frankfurt is ideally situated to be a main transport hub for a big chunk of Germany.
2) related to 1), the European Central Bank is located in Frankfurt and has been since the 80s. Furthermore, not just the EU keeps its money in Frankfurt, but many German and international banks have international headquarters in Frankfurt as well, not to mention the German stock exchange. Frankfurt is the banking capital of Germany and one of the banking capitals in the world. It is logical to have a big international airport to go with that.
3) most importantly, Lufthansa, one of the biggest airlines in the world, have their main hub in Frankfurt.
So a combination of history, geopolitics and common sense led to Frankfurt being the biggest airport in Germany. Germany has no main airport tho, just multiple big ones, of which Frankfurt is the biggest.
West-Berlin’s original airport was Tempelhof built in the 1930s. It sufficed in the 50s and 60s but eventually Tegel had to be added – Tempelhof was just too small and further development was impossible due to its location.
The problem here was that only Soviet, British, French and US airlines (and their subsidiaries) were allowed to fly across the intra-German border, so the West German flag carrier Lufthansa couldn’t operate out of TXL abd TMF in any meaningful way.
After World War 2, the Soviet military occupied the area around Berlin, and Berlin was divided into four occupation zones. The pre-WWII passenger airport (Tempelhof) was in the US occupation zone. Schonefeld airport was in the Soviet occupied zone. And during the Berlin blockade and airlift of 1948-49, the French built a facility in their occupation zone of Berlin that later became Tegel airport.
The [Four Power agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Power_Agreement_on_Berlin) had restrictions on airline service to Berlin. German airlines were not allowed to serve Berlin – only American, British, French, and Soviet airlines were allowed to serve Berlin.
Frankfurt was the headquarters city of the US occupied zone in what became West Germany. The US Air Force established its biggest bases (Wiesbaden and Rhein Main) near Frankfurt. The large US presence in the Frankfurt area stimulated commercial travel to Frankfurt, so it organically became Lufthansa’s hub when the airline was reconstituted in the 1950s.
Frakfurt was the biggest city in West Germany. Airports became a big deal and important thing before german reunification. Generally speaking West Germany was significantly wealthier and better developed than East Germany.
Long story short, the Soviets saw no value in a big and proper airport in East Germany. But the American’s saw value in a big and proper airport in West Germany. So Frankfurt is the biggest airport in Germany.
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