Hello everyone! Todays adventure is a brilliant excursion to the remains of an old airfield. I've done plenty of these in the past, but this one dwarfs them all in size, the number of buildings still surviving, the graffiti quality, and best of all, the stories of those who came here and worked, each a pioneer of aviation in the early 20th Century. I was actually quite shocked by the depths that can be plundered in regards to history. When I came here, I wasn't expecting much. It's a huge complex, sure, but as its one of the oldest airfields in the world I wasn't expecting much to be left besides the featureless husks of buildings.
This is one of those times when I am happy to be proven wrong.
The year was 1909. Flight wasn't entirely unheard of because airships had been a thing for ages. Motorised flight, however, was in its infancy, and that was very exciting. People were getting into these strange winged metal contraptions that didn't look like they could possibly be aerodynamic, but there they were, doing the impossible.
The airfield was made specifically with this new technology in mind, the other airfield to the west being purely for airships, not for planes. That didn't stop Hubert Latham, a Parisian pilot of English descent, from flying between the two airfields in 1909. The whole thing took him about fifteen minutes, and isn't at all impressive by todays standards, but back then it was quite astonishing.
Hubert Latham is perhaps better famous for attempting to fly across the English Channel that same year. He failed, but even in failure he managed to land on the channel itself, being the first successful land on a body of water.
It all sounds fantastic! All that defying expectations and breaking records! The adrenaline rush too! Everyone who got inside one of these contraptions was a pioneer of a whole new technology that we take for granted today. Back then these people were attracting huge audiences, because what they were doing was new and exciting, and seemingly impossible.
This airfields director was a chap named Major Georg von Tschudi, and he understood immediately that he had a hit on his hands with this whole plane malarky. He was 48 when he became director, and had already been captain of the countries only airship company in 1897, and a teacher in the airship battalion as of 1902. He knew that air travel was the future, and he was determined to promote it.
As such the airfield had stands for spectators, one with capacity for 2,300 and another for 1,750. Visitors were charged admission, and the funds helped finance the airfield. It was an amazing time to be alive, and Georg was very proud. That is, until he realised that people weren't coming to see the flying, but to see the crashes, of which there were plenty. Some cheeky members of the public were also dashing over to the wreckages and stealing parts for souvenirs. Georg wasn't happy! But then, as someone who wanted to promote air transport, he'd probably be quite happy to see it so commonplace today, at least until they make him take off his belt to get through airport security.
The shed was once bright pink and entirely covered in hearts. The pink has faded and the majority of it has been covered over in newer graffiti. However it was quite a lovely thing to see, this bright pink shack with hearts on it protruding from a labyrinthian industrial wasteland. I want to focus my attention on the large building behind it though. This is the one I opened with, and its perhaps one of my favourite parts of the entire complex.
Now, as I have no expertise in planes or flying, I honestly can't comment on what exactly any of these buildings used to be, but I presume there was once a top floor, or perhaps a balcony given that the rubble is only at one side, where a door can be seen over a sudden drop. Imagine being here when that came crashing down. It must have been quite a fun spectacle, unless one was standing under it.
There are stairs at the back of the building, leading up and down. I decided to cover the top floors first.
So in regards to the history, as the months passed, the success of the place grew. In 1910 a huge airship hangar was constructed, which housed an airship that would fly over the city at night with adverts projected onto the side of it for all to see.
A second airship hangar was built a year later, for two more airships.
But it was the planes that really attracted the guests, and as this industry grew, numerous companies set up workshops around the airfield, constructing planes and offering flying lessons. Essentially the place was a collection of factories situated around the airfield.
Of the folks attracted to the airfield, a few names stand out more than others. Germany-born Hermann Dorner was an early pioneer of aviation at this airfield, and his wikipedia entry consists of a measely two lines. Whereas casting a considerable shadow was school drop-out Anthony Fokker, who was born in a Dutch coffee plantation in Indonesia.
In spite of his lack of academic success, Fokker was passionate about mechanics and making stuff. He tried to invent a wheel that would not suffer punctures, due to having a perimeter formed by a series of metal plates, but he found that this had already been invented and patented, so he dropped that project. Perhaps frustrated at his sons lack of success, Fokkers dad sent him here at the age of twenty to learn how to make planes and hopefully make something of himself too. That same year Anthony Fokker did build a plane. It was called The Spider, and all his feelings of accomplishment turned to dismay when his business partner flew it into a tree, completely obliterating it. Not to be put off, Fokker made a second Spider, only for the same business partner to destroy it again! At that point, Fokker decided to end their partnership.
As for Hermann, Wikipedia aside there are vague tidbits of his story lurking around. He'd been experimenting with building gliders throughout his teenage years, and upon designing an actual monoplane, he brought it to this airfield and set up his own flying school, constructing more and more planes while participating in events. It was the thrill of construction and flying that appealed to him, more so than the business side of things, and after a few minor crashes here and there he won a prize for being one of the first five Germans to fly a figure eight around two markers, each a kilometer apart.
Another prominent character who came here for flying lessons was a young German woman named Amelie Beese. She'd been born in 1886, and had allegedly studied architecture before turning her attention to sculpture. However, in 1906 the Germans didn't allow women to attend art schools, and so she decided to study in Stolkholm. There she also learned how to sail and ski, but it was upon returning to Germany in 1909 that she found her true calling. There she studied maths, ship building and aeronautic engineering.
Which quite frankly baffles me. So having a vagina meant that she couldn't go to Art School, but aeronautic engineering is perfectly fine? That makes absolutely no sense! But, it did give Amelie a passion for flying, and so in 1910 she came here, to this airfield, to learn how to do it.
And as you'd expect for 1910, nobody wanted to teach her because she was a woman. A chap named Robert Thelens did give her a chance, but he gave up after she crashed the aircraft, breaking her leg, her nose and multiple ribs. Amelie Beese wasn't a quitter though, and as soon as she was back on her feet she was pursuing a flying teacher once again. Eventually she was taken in by a chap named Von Mosser.
Interestingly, the airfields director Georg von Tschudi was totally in favour of Amelie learning to fly. However his motives were a bit selfish. He had an upcoming air show in 1911 and he knew that having a female pilot would be the perfect way to generate controversy and publicity.
It's a teeny bit insulting. I mean, it makes her sound like a rare curiosity, a little reminiscent of those Victorian freakshows. Here's the bearded lady, the Siamese Twins, Zack Efron making out with a black woman, and a female pilot.
Lets be honest, Zac Efron is the scariest thing on that list, but at least he belongs there! I'm no expert in piloting a flying machine, but I'm fairly certain one doesn't use their reproductive organs to do it. If anything I imagine Amelie Beese had an advantage. Imagine taking a plane in for a tricky landing and then shifting position slightly and sitting on your own testicle! It does happen, it bloody hurts, and I refuse to believe that any man can safely land a plane while doing it.
And just think what he's going to say to St Peter at the gates of Heaven.
"Yeah, I killed myself and all these passengers because I sat on my bollocks while trying to land a plane... Yeah I guess I could have sat a little less awkwardly, but Buzzfeed told me that opening my legs when I sit is a form of bigotry... What do you mean I'm going to Hell for listening to Buzzfeed?"
Meanwhile, in the real world, Amelie Beese was dealing with actual problems, as her male peers sought to sabotage her plane, draining her fuel tanks, loosening her wires and such. One of the culprits even went on record to say that a female pilot would draw attention away from them. What a nob.
Amelie triumphed though, and on her 25th birthday in 1911 she finally got her pilots license. Hooray!
Check this out. The building has shower facilities.
In 1912, after the death of her father, Amelie opened up her own workshop here, where she taught others how to fly, and also set about building her own planes. Determined to triumph in a predominately male arena, she made sure she got the job done right, and of all the flying schools here, hers was the only one to not have a single serious accident or fatality.
It was during her time here that she met and taught a Frenchman named Charles Boutard. Together they designed their own plane, the Beese-Taube, which they unveiled in 1913. And here's a photo of the dynamic duo standing with it.
(Photo not mine, obviously)
What I love about this photo is that the pride is emanating from Amelie. She's accomplished something, and she knows it.
The Beese-Taube was based on a similar plane, but Amelie had built her own new parts that improved on the original design. She piloted it on its maiden voyage, demonstrating incredible speed and maneuverability, as well as strength. It could easily carry three people.
Regardless, in spite of having a patent for the parts she had made, and it being considerably less expensive than other planes, there were no buyers. The military came and looked at it, admitted that the machine was pretty cool, and then left.
Nevertheless Amelie and Charles were not put off. They were, however, in love, and that was going to be a problem.
They got married in 1913, and this meant that under German law she was now a French citizen. Ordinarily that wouldn't have been an issue, but one of the conditions for her to recieve government funding was that her planes be German-made. In the eyes of the law, the Beese-Taube was now French, as would be any other contraption Amelie designed.
Suddenly they were unable to fund their passion.
But in spite of all this, the endless hard work, the hours put in, the sexism, Amelie wrote in her memoirs that this period was the happiest of her life, doing what she loved and succeeding in spite of everything.
Here we are at the top floor of this building. And look- someone hates Donald Trump.
Or they want to have sex with him.
Or they want to have sex with a fart.
Slang words with multiple meaning leave this completely up to interpretation.
Written in lovely arched writing, it says "Trust the flow" and "Listen the birds."
I presume it was meant to say "Listen to the birds" but I like the writing nonetheless. The graffiti here has a lot of art amongst the random name tagging, and so far there's not a single badly drawn penis. It's kinda refreshing.
The view from up here is quite nice too. From here once can survey the entire industrial wasteland that was once thriving with people constructing and testing their planes.
But while I love a nice view, lets not forget, the building has a cellar.
At the bottom of the stairs is this big heavy metal door. It had a very military vibe about it, and was actually locked. However, someone had cut out a nice square chunk of it to allow a means of entry.
On the other side, I came across yet another big metal door. This one was open, and gave me a feel for just how heavy these doors are. It made me ponder on the Cold War usage of this facility. Was this, perhaps, a bunker? The prospect made me rather giddy.
It's incredibly dark and gloomy down here. I love it.
Interestingly, there are toilet cubicles down here which imply that whatever the purpose of the cellar, people worked down here, rather than it simply being a storage area.
Ooooh! Intriguing! I have no idea what the writing underneath the star means.
This is a hand pump, practically identical to the ones found in nuclear monitoring bunkers across the UK. Its purpose is simply to prevent flooding, by pumping out the water.
And if I wasn't giddy enough, I found something down here that made me a tripod.
It's a tunnel! A little crawlspace that heads out, away from the building.
Lamentably, I made the mistake of leaving this til last, purely because the airfield was so huge, and I wanted to familiarise myself with the surface buildings before exploring the underground, because I had no idea where this would bring me up, if it even came up anywhere, and to blindly crawl down with no familiarity with the surface features would be counterproductive.
Alas, putting this off was an error, because I left in a hurry and completely forgot about it, such was the sheer enormity of the place. It completely slipped my mind.
However, I assume that such a tunnel would come up here, or in one just like it. There were little steps in this shaft, leading down into the boggy depths.
Here's some UFO graffiti.
As far as I'm aware, no such spacecraft were constructed here. That honour went to the Americans at Area 51 some thirty years or so later. However, in spite of being stuck for funds, Amelie and Charles did begin experimenting with quirky ideas, designing a flying boat, along with Hermann Dorner whose business had also gone under.
Likewise stuck for cash, Dorner had asked to borrow an aircraft for a flying competition. Amelie happily let him have one, because her marriage to a Frenchman meant that she couldn't compete herself. At least this way, part of her would be in that competition. To her delight, Dorner did fly one of her aircraft in the competition, and win. His connection to Amelie is something his Wikipedia article fails to include, which is not surprising given that it only has two lines. It's Amelie's own writing that indicates that they knew each other, and worked together on the flying boat. She credits Hermann for being quite the genius when it came to computing construction costs. Logic would also indicate that if he was teaching people to fly in 1910 and she was struggling to find a teacher, he might well be one of the people who rejected her. If so then it's nice to see that there were no hard feelings. They had history to make with a flying boat, after all.
The boat was expensive, but it was also said to be incredibly advanced for it's time, with original parts designed and patented by Amelie. It was designed to offer stability on both water and in the sky, without sacrificing speed and maneuverability. Had they succeeded it might have been revolutionary.
Alas, it was not meant to be.
That same year, in 1913, the airfield bore witness to one of the most famous air disasters of all time, as a colossal airship burst into flames above the airfield and exploded, killing 28 passengers, some of which were flung horizontally from the airship only to be found dead at distances of up to half a mile. Their last memories, if the explosion hadn't already killed them, would have been that of unaided flying like a missile above the airfield before being killed by the impact as they came back down to Earth. As far as deaths go, that sounds pretty exciting.
This doorway leads into some parts of the factory closed off by a collapsing ceiling. No matter, I would find my way around.
This little pathway led alongside the collapsed area, lined by these little buildings that I assume were once offices. Naturally I took a peek inside each of them as I made my way down.
In 1914 things grew tense as the first world war loomed on the horizon. Georg was criticised heavily in the media for letting such a mishmash of nationalities build planes at his airfield. Similarly caught up in all the drama was Amelie and her French husband, who found that their beloved airfield had become quite a hostile environment.
When the war did start, Georg immediately lost his job as the airfield came under the use of the military, while Amelie and Charles found that they too were no longer welcome. Georg managed to land on his feet, at least, serving as an air commander from 1915 til 1917. Amelie was hit a lot harder.
Her planes, while looked at by the military, weren't even tested. Instead, the military declared it quite inconceivable that a woman could have designed them, and simply had them all scrapped.
Down but not yet out, Amelie and Charles moved to Warnemunde, where they could test out their flying boat. But before they could do so, they were arrested and tried as "Undesirable aliens."
While Amelie was released fairly early on, Charles had a longer sentence where he suffered such inhumane treatment that he was eventually hospitalised. The authorities seized everything that the couple owned, and destroyed it, including their home, and all of their plans for the flying boat
I found a way into those parts that had been blocked by the collapsed ceiling, through the bashed down wall at the back of a toilet cubicle.
It's still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.
The result was access to these vast, mostly empty buildings, where nature was starting to reclaim its space. Someday this could be an entire self-contained jungle.
While the first world war was hard on the airfields power couple, Hermann Dorner managed to use it to bounce back from his own financial crisis, getting a job building military planes in 1917.
Anthony Fokker similarly continued working at this airfield, also constructing planes for the military. His were perhaps the most nototious. It was one of his planes that was flown by Manfred von Richthofen, nicknamed the Red Baron, and famous during the war for 80 air combat victories. The Red Baron was considered a national hero by the Germans, and a force to be feared and respected by his enemies. He was a lover of the Fokker planes, but he died in combat in 1918 before he could try out the latest model.
Fokker was also credited for the invention of a synchronization device, which enabled the aircraft to fire a machine gun through the spinning propeller at the front without hitting the propeller blades. But while Fokker boasted that the conception, development and installation of this took him a mere 48 hours to do, historians have since found this to be a bit of a fib, given that records show he'd been working on it for at least six months. Nevertheless, this device was revolutionary and brought about an entire phase of German air superiority known as The Fokker Scourge.
A pilot named Max Immelmann is often credited for using the Fokker technology to achieve Germanys first aerial victory, but this wasn't quite true. He was beaten to it by Kurt Wintgens. Nevertheless, Max achieved fame on his own, with 15 aerial victories. We'll come back to him.
Meanwhile, back at this airfield, I'm not sure what was going on, but there seemed to be a number of really brutal fires, one in 1915 that obliterated the colossal airship hangar that had been constructed in 1910, and another in 1917 that destroyed Amelie Beeses former hangar. I'm not sure what caused them, but it's safe to say these aren't the ones I'm poking around in.
Fokker, in spite of being a talented pilot, was a bit inefficient when it came to business, failing to reinvest war profits into his factory, often causing him to struggle to reach contractual demands. He was also a bit of a dick, and he grew increasingly impatient with the militarys insistence on carrying out structural tests on his planes. When one of his prototypes crashed and fatally injured the pilot, Fokker was outraged that one of his planes had been damaged, and ran over to verbally abuse the pilot as he lay there dying. But in spite of this cruel temper, he was also quite the charmer, and he used this to get out of any serious trouble.
But after a number of incidents in 1917, a lot of his planes were temporarily grounded, considered too unsafe to fly. The fact that one of these incidents almost saw the death of the Red Barons brother, Lothar, perhaps helped make the whole thing pretty high profile.
Fokker argued with High Command that it was not his planes that were at fault, but the awful German pilots who couldn't fly the damn aircraft. However a military inquiry concluded that the faults were caused by shoddy workmanship due to poor supervision and quality control at the factory. He was given a stern warning about future conduct.
Fokker was also rumoured to be a bit of a plagiarist, taking credit for the designs from one of his employees, Reinhold Platz. Platz came to meetings with Fokker, but was never allowed to speak, nor was he ever introduced to anyone. The general theory was that Fokker wanted to take credit for the success but have Platz handy to shift blame onto if things went wrong.
Amelie did return to the airfield briefly, fuelled by a nostalgic urge to see the place that she loved before all this war nonsense had ruined her hopes and dreams. Alas, she was not recieved warmly by any of her former peers. She allegedly did see Robert Thelens who still worked there, but upon greeting him, he was ordered to see her out, explaining bluntly "It's the war."
It seems someone did try to hire her to help build plane parts, but a government inspector forbade it. Amelie returned to her mothers home, only to find that the patriotic neighbours abused her there too.
When she visited Charles in hospital, he allegedly urged her to divorce him, purely so that she could reobtain German citizenship and improve her situation. But ever faithful, she wasn't having any of that.
Upon his release, they moved into shared accomodation in a cold damp room with a ministers widow whose daughter had tubercolosis. She then passed the tubercolosis on to Charles, because they didn't have enough problems already. Relief eventually came in the form of political upheaval.
In 1918, with the war now over, Amelie and her husband returned to this airfield, full of hope that all they had suffered through was behind them and they could get back to doing what they loved.
What they came across upon returning to the airfield was a desolate mess of plane wrecks, and derelict buildings. Kinda like now, except less graffiti and more plane wrecks. They found that the hangar where they had worked was now a skeleton, following the fire of 1917.
This particular building was deliciously labyrinthian.
The toilet cubicles are wooden.
Further into the building, it was slowly falling apart, and I found myself more and more navigating around rubble to get where I needed to go.
Isn't that little graffiti guy the bully from that old Doug cartoon?
The skeleton graffiti is particular eyecatching. It carries a sword, and wears a crown, and there written on the wall it says "Unknighted."
There's some more love hearts here, likely done by the same person who did them on the shed that we saw at the start of the blog.
An incredibly unstable stairway led me up to an equally unstable balcony area, overlooking an open area, the use of which is lost on me.
There's a pretty cool three-eyed face up here, but the balcony itself is woefully flimsy, with each footstep feeling like it might be my last.
There's a graffiti kid here, telling me to free my mind. The irony is, if I do what he says then the act of obedience is the opposite of achieving freedom of thought. What a dilema.
There are toilets here too, with some awesome hand puppet graffiti.
It was around this point that I heard a dog bark somewhere behind me. Now, I'd already met numerous urban explorers on my little roam around, so I knew that I wasn't alone here. The airfield is also surrounded by parkland. Indeed the runway itself is now a park. Perhaps someone was innocently walking their dog. Or perhaps a security guard was present with a dog. I couldn't take that chance, and sought an escape from this building.
The exits were behind me in the direction of the dogs bark, but finally I spotted a hatch in the wall and opted to climb through there. It brought me out here in this massive aircraft hangar.
It seems as though the local artists have constructed something here, out of wood, graffiti and an umbrella.
But by far the best aspect of this hangar was the little gym area, where someone had painted a demonic face around the basketball hoop.
How did a hangar end up serving as a gym? Well, it was likely during the airfields most recent period of usage for the Soviet Union. The Russians often had gyms and recreational activities installed in their factories, to help with morale. It was also part of the Soviet propaganda, to show people loyal to them having fun.
The demon face was likely a later addition.
This old football goal has been similarly decorated, albeit not as prettily. Someones drawn in a stick figure goal keeper, and also some shattered glass behind the goal.
Theres a cute little graffiti gnome here, with a tuft of grass covering its bits.
Also to my surprise there was a punching bag hanging in a room just off from the gym. Was this here this entire time or was it brought here since the airfield became derelict? It does seem remarkably clean.
Exiting the gym, no more dog barking could be heard and I assumed that it was just a member of the public innocently walking by. I continued my wander around a few of the more dilapidated buildings.
There's no getting upstairs here.
Following the first world war, Amelie got back to work, determined to have a fresh start. Sure, her hangar was a burned out wreck and she had no money, but she wasn't a quitter. Out of good will, her rent for the hangar was considered a non-issue until she was earning money again, which helped considerably. What didn't help was that all of her plans and designs were destroyed. She filed a lawsuit for compensation for having their lifes work confiscated and wiped out, but the economy after the war was totally fucked, and with hyperinflation, the money she got wasn't really much at all. What was also apparent was that while the fight was still in her, Charles was weary.
There were a few familiar faces at the airfield following the war, but not enough to restore that homely vibe for them. Their friends were either killed in the war or scattered because of it.
Hermann Dorner, for example, was doing well for himself, now working on passenger planes far, far away, and likewise that dastardly Anthony Fokker had fokked off back to the Netherlands to produce passenger planes there, which was probably in his best interests because now that the war was over the German authorities were looking to file criminal charges against him for his dodgy dealings. Not only did he owe about 14 million papiermarks (the German currency until 1923) in unpaid taxes, but his unwillingness to correctly test his planes during the war had put lives at risk, and even ended some. In fact, it had been a Fokkers shoddy workmanship that had caused the death of Max Immelmann in 1916, when the synchronization device malfunctioned, causing him to shoot his own propeller off in midflight, which then caused his engine to become unbalanced and pull out of its mountings, and ultimately cause his entire aircraft to fall apart in the air.
Ever the scoundrel, Fokker managed to smuggle across 220 stolen German planes and 400 engines in a huge train. The train consisted of 350 wagons, and was purposefully too large to fit into the sidings where trains leaving the country were checked for contraband. A few sneaky bribes here and there took care of the rest. He'd gotten away with it. He was now able to get a head start as he set up shop in the Netherlands.
Naturally, as you'd expect, Fokkers autobiography makes him out to be the victim of a harrowing tale, saying that during the war the government forced German citizenship on him and that during his escape he heroically protected as many of his employees as possible. He also insists that he owes them no money whatsoever.
Initially his old factory here at the airfield was taken over by his old employee, Platz, thus proving that he was the creative genius behind Fokkers designs all along. Fokker then employed him in the Netherlands, practically an admission that he needed Platz to be successful.
Thats some really cool graffiti framed in that window.
In accordance with the Versailles Treaty, this airfield was no longer allowed to be used for military aircraft anymore. It began its slow descent into uselessness, but was saved when they opened up civilian flights to other cities in 1919. They also used it for civilian air mail, delivering newspapers to neighbouring towns.
It's worth noting, perhaps to show just how notorious Fokker became, that while the Versailles Treaty forbade the construction of any military aircraft, the planes designed by Fokker were specifically singled out for destruction and confiscation. His were the only aircraft to be specifically named in the treaty.
For the record, at this point, Fokker didn't care. He was getting married and settling down, the wily old buzzard.
Meanwhile, news that two Englishmen had flown the Atlantic in an old bomber encouraged Amelie in 1921 to plot a flight around the world. This did excite some interest from the media and film companies, especially since it was a woman proposing the idea. Those close to Amelie were unsure if she was physically and mentally capable after all she had lived through. She was, at the time, taking morphine. But she never got the chance to prove anyone wrong, because she couldn't get the required funds. Nor could she adjust to post-war plane models, technology having advanced since her pre-war glory days. It was all incredibly disheartening for her. She was only in her thirties and she felt that all of her best years were behind her.
I love this graffiti here.
There's a makeshift ladder here, leading upwards. Naturally I took a look.
In 1921 the larger airship hangar of 1911 was demolished, having been made redundant by the Versailles treaty.
However it was in 1923 that the airfield began its slow demise. Remember that airfield in the west that was only permitted to launch airships? Well following the Versailles Treaty they were undergoing changes too, making the transition to motorised aircraft, and launching its first civilian flights. As a bigger, more modern airfield, it began nabbing all of the business. A group called The Old Eagles, consisting of the adventurers and aviators of the previous decade tried to keep this place alive but ultimately failed.
Was Fokker among the Old Eagles? Nope, he was busy getting divorced. Four years of marriage was enough for Sophie, who, if you search on Google images just brings up loads of photos of Fokker, his ego and conquests casting a shadow over those close to him even in the internet age. Also not among the Eagles was Hermann Dorner, who moved to America to work on cars. And of course, Amelie was not among them either. She was miserable, barely paying her way by selling motorcycles.
It wasn't her passion though, but what good was her passion now? Her dream was dead. Her old friends were either scattered or dead. The once busy airfield was also dead, thanks to that more popular rival in the west. She wrote memoirs of the glory days, recalling tales of the airfield from 1910 to 1913, in a passionate effort to ensure that the aviators of the past be acknowledged, because they were the pioneers that had led humankinds mastering of a world-changing technology. If she couldn't follow her passion, she would ensure that they were remembered at least.
Her husband eventually left her. It seems a shame given what they had endured together as a couple. It would be nice to say they had a fairytale ending, living happily ever after, but the truth is far more sadder and realistic.
Charles went back to France, where he had come from, and was subsequently arrested as soon as he crossed the border. It seemed all those years building planes in Germany before the war had made them suspicious that he was a traitor. Given that he'd spent the war in hospital because he'd been roughed up in a German prison for being French, this arrest at the hands of his own people broke his spirit entirely and he returned to Germany to be a taxi driver for the rest of his life.
Over here was some amazing graffiti. It's the Green Goblin, from Spider-Man!
That's amazing! I since learned that the artist behind this goes by Orson, and clicking him there will take you to his social media page.
However, as if I wasn't already falling in love with the graffiti here, the best was yet to be...
Check this out!
It's a woman in a hooded cape, a goblin creature by her side, and a dead wolf lying in a pool of blood in the background amongst some snarling trees. It's incredible! I've never seen graffiti like this before! At least, not in person.
Nearby, a blonde girl rests an axe dripping with blood over her shoulder. This is the work of an artist called Von Kiki, as are the zombie girls below.
Joining Von Kiki's zombies are these beautiful works of art by an artist who goes by Honey. And she hasn't stopped there. Together they've turned this entire area of the factory into a zombie apocalypse, and I absolutely love it. These don't just look like generic drawings, but like they could actually be characters in a cartoon or something.
But then, I love art, as you probably gathered from my last blog when I marveled at the paintings in that abandoned school. I can't do this. I suck at art.
But I have been to a lot of abandoned places. I've written over two hundred blog posts. I've seen a lot of graffiti. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before, and honestly, given that in the UK graffiti usually consists of some swear words and badly drawn willys, the art here is so refreshing to see.
The world can be pretty bleak sometimes, and sure, we can complain about graffiti, but we all know the real criminals wear suits and sit in offices, or abuse children and program them into adorable little wrecks like myself. Either way, I don't have a bad word to say about people who use graffiti to bring some brightness into a bleak world.
Meanwhile, back in the airfield after I reluctantly pulled myself away from the zombies...
This area seems to be particularly overgrown. Nature works quickly.
So what became of Amelie? Well in 1925 she reapplied for her pilots license and crashed. In an odd probably accidental piece of symbology, the aircraft that she crashed was an old wartime Fokker, a plane built by a man who thrived in the war even though his planes were considered shoddy, while Amelie was dismissed for her gender even though she had the lowest crash rate of any of the flying schools at the airfield.
Two months later, Amelie shot herself. The note that she left said "Flying is essential. Living is not."
Meanwhile, Fokker moved to America in 1927, where he was eventually sued. It turned out his famous device that allowed the planes to fire through their propeller had already been patented by someone else as far back as 1910, and they weren't happy that Fokker was taking credit for it. They won the lawsuit but Fokker simply refused to pay, considering himself untouchable now that he was in America.
He married a Canadian called Violet, but she died when she fell from a hotel balcony in 1939. Initially this was said to be suicide, but it later turned out that she suffered from vertigo and had passed out. She'd actually returned to the hotel after a flight, and feeling rather faint, she asked the maid for a glass of water. By the time the maid got back, Violet had fallen over the side.
Fokker himself, in a moment of sincerity and regret, lamented that he understood planes more than he understood women. In all his years he'd had so many pointless love affairs, believing that getting emotionally invested was a waste of time because nothing could be more important than his planes. But in his later life, he had began to reflect on this with some measure of regret. It seemed that for all his sneaking and shady business, while he had schemed his way to the top, he was still lonely and spiritually unfulfilled. In 1931 he'd sold his company to General Motors. His health was already starting to wane in 1934, and he died of pneumococcal meningitis in 1939. He sounds like he was a bit of a dick in his youth but ultimately it seems like his story can be learned from too.
The stories of Amelie Beese and Anthony Fokker are just two to emerge from this airfield. They've been lucky. Had it not been for the invention of the internet later in that century, they might well have faded to complete obscurity. The airfield was a hive of activity, and while they've had their stories told, others like Hermann Dorner are given a mere two lines of a Wikipedia entry, while many others have none at all. This is how history works. There are millions of human beings whose stories and accomplishments are lost to us forever. But the internet has changed that. We're each writing our own eulogy through our every utterance on social media. In much the same way I judged Fokker as a bit of a dick in my writing, others will judge us too, based on what we leave behind.
Surprisingly given that there's very little to be found on him, Hermann Dorner outlived them all. He'd returned to Germany in 1931 and set up a furniture store. His skills weren't unnoticed though, and when the second world war broke out, he found himself working on submarines for the Nazis. He lived through the war, but everything he owned in Germany had been destroyed by bombings, and his assets in America had been confiscated. He had difficulty making ends meet, and he began suffering health issues that were traced all the way back to a head injury he'd sustained in a plane crash in 1910. He died of heart failure in 1963.
So now that I've dropped the N-word, you can probably guess what happened to the airfield next. That's right, the Nazis came here, and began secretly using the airfield for military purposes as they rearmed for the second world war.
And we all know how that went.
Following the war, the airfield finally had a chance to shine when it found that it was no longer competing with that that other airfield in the west. Oh it was still out there, being awesome, but they were separated now by the iron curtain. That one was in the west, and this one was in the east, so it fell under Soviet control. The Russians used the airfield right up until 1952, but not content with it, they started building their own airfield further south. As that one grew, this one dwindled, and other companies took up space in some of the buildings. In 1950, a company manufactured fridges here, and then car engines after merging with another company in 1968.
Another part of the complex was used as a research centre, developing the first birth control pills and the spectral cameras that were used on the Russian spacecraft Soyuz 22. Many of the old hangars also served as television studios. I read somewhere that pretty much everything that was ever televised in East Germany during Soviet control was filmed here.
And then of course, the Border Guards used some of it as a barracks.
And you know what, it sure is big enough to facilitate all this and more! This place is huge! I didn't even get to see all of it, much to my dismay!
Its later usage actually explains a lot. I had a moment of confusion when I reached out to Von Kiki to compliment her work that I "found in the airfield." She thanked me but she was also puzzled, wondering how the work in question got from a factory to an airfield. I considered that one of us was misinformed about the history of the place, but no, it all makes sense if this was used as a factory up until the 1990s after the airfields demise in 1952!
To refer to her work as being done on an airfield is the equivalent of me buying coffee from Waitrose in Shrewsbury and claiming "I got this from Burger King." It hasn't been Burger King for well over a decade! Why would I still refering to it as Burger King? It's Waitrose!
At least, that seems like a fair analogy.
That Burger King was my first ever blog post, so it's a fond memory.
The factories that operated here all died with the reunification of Germany. When the wall came down, all the successful eastern companies were purchased by western ones and relocated. From 1994 all the factories here were empty.
Presumably in an effort to use the space, a flight show was held here in 1995 and it saw the death of Reinhard Furrer. Reinhard was born in 1940 in Ostmark, the country that we now know as Austria. After world war 2, his family moved to Bavaria where he studied physics. He transfered to Berlin where he got his diploma in 1969 and a doctoriate in 1972. He also helped construct a tunnel under the Berlin Wall that, in 1964, led to a mass escape from East Berlin of some 57 citizens. He went on to teach physics, before moving to America in 1980 where he taught in Chicago. He officially became an astronaut in 1982, blasting into space in 1985 on the 22nd mission of Nasas space shuttle program. He returned to being a professor in Germany as of 1987.
But he had a love of flying, and that was what killed him in a tragic accident here in 1995.
And from 1995 onwards the remnants of the airfield have sat empty and unloved, now a wasteland of its former thriving industries. The former runway has become a park. The former buildings, a canvas.
As far as excursions go, this one was worth it. Excursions can be good for ones mental health, adventures doubly so, running away forever less so. Wherever you run, you'll take yourself with you, after all. That's always worth keeping in mind.
I made my escape from the airfield upon getting spotted by people on the outside. Everyone has a mobile phone these days, and I wasn't about to take chances. I didn't want to deal with law enforcement when I don't even speak their language. Why did I decide to learn Russian? German would have been a far smarter choice.
To conclude, I actually love it here. The complex is huge. I did a little maths and worked that Denbigh Mental Asylum can fit into it nearly three times over!
Alas, some parts of it do seem to be being put back to use. Work has started on some of the outer buildings, and I'm sure that eventually that will creep into the other factory remnants too. I'm glad to have gotten the opportunity to sneak around while it was all still here.
That's all I've got. My next blog post will be based in Shrewsbury over on my home blog, "Shrewsbury from where you are not." It's a little something I'm putting together to celebrate nine years of doing this crazy stuff and not dying. And then I'll be blogging about a cold war radar station.
In the mean time please share this blog, and don't forget to follow my Instagram, like my Facebook and follow my Twitter.
Thanks for reading!
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