Waldau

51°16'53"N 009°30'20"E

runway: 01/19 - 1250x35m/4000x120feet - concrete

Air field Waldau (German: Flugplatz Waldau, Fliegerhorst Waldau or Airfield Kassel-Waldau Y-96) was an airfield in the city of Kassel, Germany.
The airfield was built in 1918 and had its first building in 1924, the same year it was officially opened. From 1926 it was regularly serviced by airliners, primarily Luft Hansa.


The ceremonial opening of services by a Luft Hansa Junkers F-13 in 1926 (hna.de)

The first successful airplane tow of a glider was done at Waldau airfield on 12 March 1927 by World War I flying ace and aerobatic champion Gerhard Fieseler in the tow plane and Gottlob Espenlaub in the glider. Gerhard Fieseler set up his aircraft production plants at Kassel from 1930 as Fieseler Flugzeugbau. One of them (Werk III, or Plant III) was at Waldau airfield, another one ony one mile from the airfield.
That same year the airline connection ended, when Waldau had to close as a city airfield. This happened because Kassel could no longer afford to pay Luft Hansa for its services or the maintenance of the airfield. Ownership of the airfield was then transferred to the Lower Hessian Association for Aviation (german: Niederhessischen Verein für Luftfahrt).
Still, the airfield remained open, and it attracted a 100,000 crowd during the visit of a Zeppelin airship in September 1930.


LZ127 'Graf Zeppelin' visiting Waldau on 3 September 1930 (lagis-hessen.de)

At its plants Fieseler produced amongst others:.
Fieseler Fi 2 Sport Aircraft (before WW-II).
Fieseler Fi 5 Sports and trainer (before WW-II).
Fieseler Fi 98, fighter aircraft, biplane (before WW-II).
Fieseler Fi 167 torpedo bomber/reconnaissance aircraft (before WW-II).
Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, a renowned STOL observation/liaison aircraft (from 1936 until 1943).
Messerschmidt Bf109 (licence production).
Focke-Wulf Fw190 (licence production, from 1943 onwards).
Fieseler Fi-103, better known as the V-1 'Buzz bomb', the first (crude) cruise missile (1944-1945).
At times the plants used 10,000 working men and women, many of them slave labour from the Netherlands and France. As a result the Fieseler plants regularly received attention from Allied bombers and although some damage was done to the plants, most destruction occurred in the city itself. The damaged airfield was finally taken by American forces on 4 April 1945.


Kassel-Waldau, photographed by a 7 PRG reconnaissance aircraft in 1944 (US AFHRC, via Wikimedia).

The Americans pressed the airfield into service as airfield Kassel-Waldau Y-96. In April 1945 it was used by 48FG (P-47 Thunderbolts) for two weeks. After that it became a Technical Air Depot (or TAD) for 10 Air Depot Group. The airfield remained closed to civilian traffic until 29 April 1955, when it was returned to the city of Kassel for civilian use. By the early 1960s, however, it became clear the airfield could not remain open much longer. It was located in the eastern side of the city with no room for expansion and residential areas were becoming hard to avoid. When the city of Kassel opened a new airfield to the north of the city in July 1970 Waldauer was closed and converted to an industrial area.


maps of Waldau with reference points in red (Geochaching.com)

Today, very little is left of the former airfield. The runway was still more or less intact in 1983, but has since disappeared under warehouses and offices. In arial photography from 2006 (Google Earth) only one building remained visible: the Fieseler Werk III. The roof had large holes in it however, and it is uncertain what its current state is. To the southeast and south of Plant III were still a few stretches of taxitrack visible. Other than that the complete area has been built over.


2006 overview of Waldau with perimeter in yellow, runway in red, and remaining airfield pieces in blue.