Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport, which became a hub of Western resolve against communism during the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49, closed yesterday, after 85 years of operations. The future of the site is uncertain, according to US and German press reports. Tempelhof, which opened in 1923, served as one of the main landing points for US and British aircraft bringing in the supplies that kept West Berlin’s resident’s from starving and freezing during the Soviet blockade that started in June 1948 and ran into May 1949. That airlift remains the largest humanitarian air bridge in history. (For more read the Associated Press report, Bloomberg piece, and Deutsche Welle entry.)
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
