Why is Germany’s main airport in Frankfurt rather than Berlin?
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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.
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