Dortmund

51°32'27"N 007°33'30"E

Runway: 06/25 - 1,100x80meter - concrete

Airport/Air Base Dortmund-Brackel (German:Flugplatz/Fliegerhorst Dortmund-Brackel) was an airport/air base east of Dortmund, 410 kilometer west-southwest of Berlin, Germany.
It was the original airport of Dortmund, situated along the railway Dortmund-Hamm. It was active from 1910 until the final days of World War II. 

As early as shortly before World War I (ca 1910) some amateur fliers started to use some fields north of the village of Brackel and by 1912 the amateurs were there on a very regular basis. These fields were located where today a chocolate factory can be found, quite close to the railway station. 
The activities of the fliers was officially sanctioned by the then-mayor of Brackel, Dr. Eichhoff, and the city counsil established an air station here in an attempt to found a pilot training school and promote the Dortmund area.


Map of Flugplatz Dortmund, ca. 1927 (source)

After World War I the field began to see use by postal flights and by 1921 the German Air Freight Service (german: Deutsche Luftreederei) had a dispatch office at the field. A unit  that alledgedly used the airfield was the French Air Corps, but they withdrew in 1924.
In an effort to make the field suitable for passenger flights, measures were taken to drain the excess water from the field. The airfield was then officially inaugurated on 27 May 1925. In January the following year the Flughaven Dortmund GmbH was founded, followed by the bricklaying for a new modern airport building and tower which was finished in April 1927.
Along with the airfields at Cologne (Köln), Düsseldorf and Essen, Dortmund became a major hub for air traffic in western Germany. Flughafen Dortmund GmbH exists to this day, in 2006 it celebrated 80 years of operations.


Dortmund airport building ca. 1930 (Archive Deutsche Lufthansa, via)


Tower and hangar at Flugplatz Dortmund (Archive Deutsche Lufthansa, via)

In 1930 a short lived attempt was made to make Dortmund suitable for airships in order to make the airport more versatile. After a few months (and a visit of the 'Graf Zeppelin') the attempt was cancelled and airships never returned to Dortmund.
In 1935 the Luftwaffe set its eyes on the airfield, and two years of expansion began. The Luftwaffe completed a 1,100x80meter runway, but civilian air traffic was allowed to contunue using the air field until 1939.


A video of Dortmund pointed out to me by Volker Böhme. Although the title says 1940, I believe this to be incorrect. In early May 1940 (spring time) , Belgium, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and France were attacked and overrun by the German Wehrmacht. In this video, the trees are green (suggesting summer, not spring) and an unidentified and a Belgian Fokker F.VIIb/3m (OO-AIM 'Haren') is visible, which would not be the case in the summer of 1940. Also visible is Junkers F24 D-1018, which in 1934 became D-ULET and crashed in 1935. As it does carry the Nazi-swastica, the film was made after the Nazi takeover of early 1933, but before it became D-ULET in 1934.

Map of Flugplatz Dortmund ca. 1942, made by USAAF photo interpreters in 1942 (source)

During the dual civilian-military years, the Luftwaffe stationed a Group of a Fighter Wing (I./134 "Horst Wessel") at the airfield. From 1936 until 1939 the group first grew to a full Fighter Wing (Jagdgeschwader) and then on to an Attack Wing (Zerstörergeschwader, or ZG142 "Horst Wessel") changing aircraft types every time.
By the Winter of 1940 it had become Bf110 light bombers, and the military part of the airfield had become known as Richthoven-Barracks (Richthoven-Kaserne). On 26 August 1939 the civilian co-use of the airtfield was halted.


Flugplatz Dortmund, ca. 1944 (source)

During the Second World War the airfield saw heavy use by many flying units. At the base about 1,000 personnel were stationed. During the campaign in Western Europe in early summer 1940 it was mainly used by transport aircraft. When in 1943 the amount of Allied bombers rose, it became home to numerous Fighter Units, flying Bf109, Bf110 and Ju88. In spite of all the fighter units the city of Dortmund, the airport and the surrounding area saw numerous air attacks.
The last recorded Luftwaffe flight took off from Dortmund-Brackel on March 28, 1945, leaving a group of 70 army demolitions personnel to destroy as much of the runway and hangars as they could. A few days later on 8th April American tanks appeared at the perimeter, but they did not occupy it.
The Royal Air Force took over the airport soon after and immediately prohibited all German aviation, although it's not clear if the RAF ever stationed a squadron there.

It's also not clear when the RAF left Dortmund-Brackel airfield, but in 1950 Aero-Clubs e.V. was formed by two brothers, Theo and Hans Hengsbach, and some other enthusiasts, as the successor to Dortmund Aviation Club. Powered aviation was prohibited by NATO as soon as it was formed in 1949, so Aero-Clubs used their efforts to build gliders, and the first one took flight on June 13, 1953.
Powered flight was again permitted on May 5, 1955 and although sporting and recreational activities restarted the main user, Lufthansa, had abandoned Dortmund-Brackel because, at 1,100 meters, the runway was too short. All types of commercial aircraft then available needed at least 2,000 meters to take off and land.
Flughafen Dortmund GmbH gave some thought to expansion of the runway and airfield due to its ideal location as a part of the Rhein-Westphalia network, but there were several obstacles. Although there was more than enough land to the east of the runway, re-aligning the runway in the East-West direction was restricted by the proximity to the Dortmund-Hamm railway line and the inconvenience, not to mention the danger, of aircraft landing in the path of trains. Also, the runway could not be extended in its existing North-South orientation due to the marshy ground to the north. But the biggest obstacle was the NATO decree of April 1959 which put an end to all sporting and recreational flying activities at Dortmund-Brackel, and all existing tenants were evicted.
The site was soon afterwards occupied by a British artillery regiment known as 47 (GW) Regiment, Royal Artillery, and 'Richtofen Kaserne' was renamed Napier Barracks after an action by No 4 (Sphinx) Battery early in its history.
The Hengsbach brothers soon started another aviation business in 1956, Hengsbach & Co., operating out of some fields at Wickede and offering holiday flights to the North Sea coasts. The Dortmund Aviation Club moved to Wickede at the same time, together with a flying school that was probably made up of the remnants of the one at Dortmund-Brackel. That airfield eventually became the Dortmund-Wickede Airport run by the original Flughafen Dortmund GmbH, although it didn't get permission to build the first 850-meter runway until 1969, and that wasn't completed until 1983. It was extended to 1,050 meters in 1987 and finally reached 2,000 meters in 2001.


Napier barracks, the former Flugplatz Dortmund ca1980 (source)

47 Regiment, Royal Artillery, arrived at Fliegerhorst Dortmund-Brackel from Crookham in Hampshire in the summer of 1959 and was in fact the first occupational regiment to be stationed there. 47 Regt. (RA) stayed until 1965, after which the regiment was disbanded the following year.
Thereafter Napier Barracks was occupied by 36 Heavy Air Defence Regiment on two occasions, 1967-68 and 1971-77. The final occupant brought back aviation to Dortmund-Brackel, when Canadair drones were based there 1982-87. The entire complex, the only known to be complete WW-II Luftwaffe airfield in Germany was left to Dortmund when the British Army withdrew completely from Dortmund in 1995.

In 2003 the runway was broken up and old underground fuel and oil tanks were removed.  After that, the entire 'air side' was found to be covered by a golf club (since 1976) and football training fields (ca. 2005?) of Borussia Dortmund SV, but many airport buildings remained in 2010.


Flugplatz/Fliegerhorst Dortmund ca. 2002/2003 (Google Earth).