Tempelhof

Tempelhof is an area in Berlin within the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. It is the location of Tempelhof International Airport. Tempelhof is 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 the villages Tempelhove, Margendorpe, Marienfelde and Lichtenrade, which were founded in the 13th century.

"Tempelhove" was founded 1247 as a "Komturhof" ("commander's court", smallest holding entity of a military knights' order) by Templars 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 the order of the Templars was officially abolished, the order of the Knights of St. John took over the villages of Tempelhof, Mariendorf and Marienfelde.

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.

ister Cities

*flagicon|USA Charleston, South Carolina, USA

*flagicon|ISR Nahariya, Israel

*flagicon|UK London Borough of Barnet, England