The Tempelhof town hall - due to the merger with Schöneberg now without a mayor
Tempelhof was a borough of the city of Berlin that was united with Schöneberg in 2001 to form the Tempelhof-Schöneberg borough. It is the location of Tempelhof International Airport. Tempelhof is in the southern part of the city and borders Brandenburg.
The borough of Tempelhof consisted of four districts:
- Tempelhof
- Mariendorf
- Marienfelde
- Lichtenrade
These districts grew from the villages Tempelhove, Margendorpe, Marienfelde and Lichtenrade, which were founded in the 13th century.
Tempelhove was founded 1247 as a Komturhof ("commander's court", smallest holding entity of a military knights' order) by Templars who were expelled from Palestine. The center of the settlement, consisting of the church and the original estate, was fortified and originally completely surrounded by water.
The Templars were joined by 15 families of landless farmers' sons from the Rhine, who couldn't inherit any estate from their parents' possessions due to an over-fragmentation of their estate. Legates of the Templars offered them fertile soil and the protection of Tempelhove's stronghold.
After the order of the Templars was officially abolished, the order of the Knights_of_St_John took over the villages of Tempelhof, Mariendorf and Marienfelde.
The Lehnepfuhl in the Kleiner Park
Today, the former Komturei is a chain of parks, called Bosepark, Kleiner Park, Alter Park and Franckepark. Some of them still have
ponds that were part of the inartificial
moat surrounding the village's center.
The deer park that was once the Krumme Pfuhl
One of them, the Krumme Pfuhl, located in the Franckepark, after being turned into public swimming baths in the 19th century, has completely dried out and is now an enclosed
deer park.
The church as it looks nowadays
The original church, built from glacial boulders, was destroyed in the second world war and was replaced with one made of smaller paving stones and having a timber-frame tower.
