Berliners gathered yesterday to bid farewell to Tempelhof, the airport whose role as a gateway to the west during the post-war Soviet blockade transformed a symbol of Nazi architecture into a symbol of freedom and resilience.

Shortly before midnight two cold-war era aircraft, a Douglas DC-3 and Junkers JU-52, were due to take off sounding the "final call" for a landmark of global aviation, a rare city centre air terminal that British architect Norman Foster once lauded as "the mother of all airports".