Originally Posted by
WHBM
Contrary to some descriptions, Schonefeld airport, to the south of the city, was not in East Berlin, but just outside it in the mainstream GDR
Flughafen Schönefeld from 1970's DDR map
The entirely white area behind the purple line is West Berlin. On the other side of the area behind the purple line is 'Berlin Hauptstadt der DDR' (Grünbergallee S-Bahn is still the last S-Bahn stop within Berlin city limits). The south side of the purple line is 'das Land Brandenburg'
Which is why the current airport is named Berlin Brandenberg Airport ('Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg') as it serves both the city state of Berlin and the state of Brandenburg.
It never occurred to me, until reading this thread, that Schönefeld was located outside the four allied-powers sectors of Berlin, which of course it was.
East Germany was seeking 'hard currency' and flights were much cheaper from Schönefeld. I remember KLM, Austrian and Swiss also ran a few flights to Schönefeld, as the four allies held something of a monopoly on flights operating from within the four sectors.
I remember catching a transit bus service to West Berlin having flown from Budapest to Schönefeld on Malév. The plane was a Tupolev Tu-154 which was built like a tank.
I sat towards the very back of the plane and enjoyed the sound of the Kuznetsov jets attached to either side of the rear fusalage. Like a Boeing 727 but much, much louder!