Tag Archives: Tempelhof Airport

Drop In Number Of Refugees Due To Merkel’s Asylum Policy?

March 25, 2016 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I think not. Try Austria’s asylum policy of enforcing real border controls.

Tempelhof

The Berlin government is going ahead with plans to expand the big refugee center at Tempelhof airport, even though its population has dropped. According to Berlin’s latest official figures, only around 50 refugees are arriving in Berlin every day – a long way below the 1,000 that sometimes arrived daily last fall…

While Merkel officially has stuck to her line, thereby isolating herself in Europe, Austria has made a drastic about-face within a matter of weeks. In September 2015, Faymann criticized Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban’s policy of deterrence, and now, Austria is following suit.

Austria has imposed a cap on the number refugees it will allow into the country and the authorities will now only accept 80 asylum applications per day. A four kilometer long fence has been erected near the town of Spielfeld at the Slovenian border. When Hungary built a fence along its border with Serbia in the autumn, Faymann fiercely attacked the activities. Now, even the armed forces are deployed at the Austrian border.

German Of The Day: Blitzabschiebungen

October 25, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

That means fast-track deportations and they are scheduled to begin tomorrow.

Tempelhof

Germany will begin accelerating deportations for migrants who “have no claim” to be in the country in order to focus efforts on refugees from worn-torn countries, government officials have said.

New measures aiming to fast track asylum and extradition procedures for migrants from southeastern Europe, and concentrate on refugees from countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, could begin as early as next week, rather than 1 November as previously anticipated.

Meanwhile, at good old used-to-be Tempelhof Airport in Berlin…

Berlin officials say they’re hastily constructing temporary housing facilities in a hangar in the German capital’s former Tempelhof Airport to accommodate a predicted influx of asylum-seekers.

The city said in a statement Saturday that Berlin expects 1,000 people to arrive this weekend based upon the numbers coming across the border from Austria.

It says 90 other facilities are all full, so firefighters, soldiers, disaster-relief workers and volunteers are busily erecting 73 large tents inside a hangar at the famous former airport, which was closed in 2008.

“Haus-in-Haus-Lösung” nennt der Senat das: Rund 500 Flüchtlinge sollen die Zelte im Hangar 1 des Flughafens Tempelhof künftig bewohnen, später dann 1000.

The Mother Of All Refugee Shelters?

August 29, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Tempelhof airport, the iconic structure that once oversaw the Berlin air lift in the 1950s, may be re-invented as a refugee shelter. The overstretched city administration did not deny it was considering the option.

Refugee

Berlin may have finally found a use for Tempelhof airport, the vast, iconic building that ceased operation in 2008, but has only been put to temporary use since. The city administration is considering turning the iconic structure – scene of the Berlin air lift during the Cold War and once described by architect Sir Norman Foster as the “mother of all airports” – into one of the biggest refugee shelters in Europe.

Let It Rot

May 18, 2014 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It’s voting time  in Berlin again. This time it’s about whether or not good old abandoned Tempelhof Field should be developed or not (for housing, a library, etc.). You know, to actually maybe use it for something other than flying kites?

But as usual we have learned that this would be a terrible thing and that the field needs to be “saved” from such an awful fate, or at least that’s what opponents on the left insist. Urban Romantics need more room to move, especially if they are German ones (“the richest kind”) and being that saying no is so popular and comes so naturally to Germans in general and Berliners in particular, I am quite sure these opponents will win yet again.

Der stillgelegte Berliner Flughafen liegt brach. Nicht weil der Ort belasteter wäre als andere, sondern weil es leichter ist, mit dem “Luxus der Leere” zu kokettieren, als die Geschichte anzunehmen.

Das Tempelhofer-Feld ist eine Oase mitten in Berlin.

Calling All Baseball Fans

November 28, 2013 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

In Berlin (all two or three of you?). Please sign this petition in support of the old baseball fields on Columbiadamm at Tempelhofer Feld (click the picture).

Baseball

The Berlin Senat is planning to get rid of one of them to make room for a Friedhofserweiterung (cemetary expansion)? That about says it all, doesn’t it?

Thanks for the link, Indeterminacy. And yes, an ape may just have been keeping score there.

Ein weiterer Softballplatz in Zehlendorf wurde aufgrund zahlreichen Protestes eines Bewohners eines Einfamilienhauses vernichtet und steht ebenfalls nicht mehr zur Verfügung.