There was a time when a touch of the world wafted through Gießen.

In the 1920s, the city was connected to the Lufthansa route network.

The flight to Frankfurt cost seven Reichsmarks.

The airport building was also a popular destination for the whole family, especially on Sundays.

People sat on the terrace with a cup of coffee and a piece of strawberry shortcake and watched the occasional takeoff and landing.

After the site was taken over by the American army, the Bauhaus-style house fell into oblivion - and fell into disrepair.

Daniel Beitlich is now breathing new life into it.

The co-owner of the real estate project developer Revikon has been investing almost one million euros in the renovation since 2015.

The building is considered an "outstanding monument of modernity".

It is scheduled to officially reopen on Memorial Day on September 10, 2023.

In the middle grew a birch

Beilich has collected photographs of the reception building from the good old days.

Some recordings hang on the walls.

The historically interested investor is keen to restore everything as faithfully as possible to the original.

When he bought the property, all that was left of the house were the remains of the wall, overgrown by undergrowth.

The ceiling had collapsed.

In the middle grew a birch.

Everything is new now.

The lettering "Flughafen Giessen" has been immaculately emblazoned on the facade again for a few weeks.

It cost 15,000 euros to manufacture and attach the wooden letters painted with gold paint.

A furniture maker made the door frames individually by hand.

The protection of historical monuments had a say everywhere.

While the ground floor with the small café is largely finished, the three guest rooms on the first floor still need to be prepared.

2491 was once the telephone number of the airport, as Daniel Beitlich has researched.

Everything was handled through them back then: ticket sales, information and also the reservation of strawberry cake in the café.

“The Wieseckaue was ideally suited for flight operations.

Biplanes and zeppelins landed on the grass runway even before Lufthansa moved there.

For the people of Giessen it was a kind of window into the world, a departure into modernity," explains the investor during the tour.

More than 7,000 people have taken part in guided tours on the airport site, as reported by Beitlich.

This shows the Giesseners' interest in the relic of a glorious past that had disappeared from the scene for more than 70 years.

After completion, Revikon will use the building for representation purposes.

Other companies that have settled there are also given the opportunity to do so.

It will not be freely accessible to the public.

"The café would be too small to function," Beitlich regrets.

“In addition, gastronomy and monument protection do not go together.

The editions are too big.”

Too few passengers

Giessen Airport was built in 1925.

The first scheduled flights went to Frankfurt, and after being integrated into the Lufthansa route network, which emerged from the Southwest German Air Transport Company in 1926, also to Kassel.

For the settlement, the city of Giessen had to contractually guarantee Lufthansa an annual turnover of 50,000 Reichsmarks, a considerable sum at the time.

In the first twelve months, the airport was served on 149 days.

In 1931 there were 2252 starts on 129 days.

But the number of passengers was too low, and in 1933 operations were stopped except for the feeder flights to Frankfurt, and then completely in 1936.

A year later, the Nazis converted the facility into a military airfield.

On May 1, 1939, Kampfgeschwader 55 “Greif” was stationed there.

After the Second World War, the American army took over the area and set up the US depot there with the European headquarters of the "army's own consumer goods supply chain".

The military part of the US depot was closed in 2007, the last civilian parts in 2015.

The Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks took over the utilization of the 200-hectare site and sold it to Revikon.

80 hectares are under nature protection.

Revikon redesigned the remaining area and sold it bit by bit.

The renovated airport reception building is to become the area's "structural visiting card".