Talk:1948 Gatow air disaster

Latest comment: 11 years ago by Anorak2

Hallo The article about the 1948 air-disater is quite interesting for me, because I live exactly in the area, where ist happens. Here a little correction about the location-names. The russian fighter-base was Dallgow, also known as Staaken, a post-war maintenance-base of Lufthansa and airship-factory in WW1. Nearby is the Hahneberg, near to the former East-german border and the Heerstrasse. On Hahneberg a fortress is located, planed as a satellite for Berlin-Spandau Zitadelle in the late 19th century, but never reached service. Regards, Christian Heinisch Meydenbauerweg 28 13593 Berlin

Hi. The British enquiry called the Soviet base Dahlof. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:19, 20 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
The nearby Soviet Air Force Base was indeed the Staaken Airport. Dahlof is most likely a mistranslation from the cyrillic written Далльгов, which actually means Dallgow. The Soviet Air Force probably called the Staaken Airport Dallgow, although there is no historical reason why they should have done so. After Staaken Airport the only place to land would have been the airfield near Elstal. Elstal belongs to Wustermark today. The airfield near Elstal had no runways. Staaken Airport had two runways, which are, although in very bad shape, still existing. To correct Herr Heinisch, Staaken was a pre-war maintenance-base of Lufthansa, not post-war. --BajanZindy (talk) 19:04, 9 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
Dallgow (or Döberitz, as it was also called) and Staaken were two separate airports, even though they were rather close to each other. It's unlikely they Soviets would have confused the two. Dallgow-Döberitz was military airport that the Soviets had taken over after 1945. Until 1951 they had no control of the Staaken airport. When they finally did, operations were moved from Dallgow-Döberitz to Staaken. So in 1948 most likely they actually meant Dallgow. Anorak2 (talk) 16:38, 28 July 2012 (UTC)Reply