Fly directly from Utzenstorf to your vacation? Switzerland's largest airport almost came into being in the region.
What if this extraordinary idea had been realized? The entire midland region far around Utzenstorf would have developed fundamentally differently. One can well imagine this with the example of the Zurich-Kloten airport that was finally realized. Today the highway and the railroad 2000 cut through the plain and make themselves acoustically noticeable depending on the wind conditions, but the thundering of arriving and departing airplanes has disappeared. Also the wide areas and parts of the forest have been preserved and have not been mercilessly built over. But around 1942, people lived in a completely different situation. There was still a war going on, but fortunately Switzerland was spared for the most part. At that time, the Mittelland was considered the granary of Switzerland and, together with other agricultural regions, secured the food supply for the population, which had become scarce. But there were also visions of the future. The Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) asked the cantons to submit plans for an intercontinental airport. One of the arguments for the order was job creation in times of a severely slowed economy. The fact that Switzerland had once been the "hub of Europe" in air traffic before the war and that the existing airfields would no longer meet international conditions for blind landing strips also supported the concerns of the airport's proponents.
Farmland in danger :
Because of the previous land consolidation, some of the farmers had fallen out among themselves, but they quickly became a united group of opponents of the project due to the threat of land expropriation if the central airport was realized. For many farmers, the food rationing introduced as a result of the Second World War and the government's cultivation campaign to increase self-sufficiency were in stark contrast to the planned project. After all, many hectares of valuable arable land would have been concreted over, which, in contrast to hilly and mountainous cultivation areas, was easier to cultivate. The farmers argued for their opposition in the press with the slogan "Large airfield or usable land? On top of that, traveling by airplane was considered by the majority of the locals as a completely superfluous luxury. An action committee against the large airport was founded. At that time, satirical texts and drawings appeared regularly in the regionally distributed "Bärenspiegel", which from today's point of view often seem rather naïve, but at that time demonstrated the persistent resistance of the farmers and the population. In the "Bund" of March 23, 1945, one could finally read: "The people of Zurich have once again plastered over the people of Bern. The major intercontinental airfield was coming to Kloten according to the decision of the National Council. (...) But then came the opposition of the Utzenstorf farmers, supported by the large farmers', tradesmen's and citizens' party. The matter proved to be politically unpopular, and so the readiness for action waned, even though the project received a very good assessment in an expert opinion from the Federal Office of Aviation, and for a while it was said that Utzenstorf was the only solution at all. The small group of those who dared to recommend a large airfield on Bernese soil became smaller and smaller and the government also became more and more reluctant (...)". The only large aircraft landed at Utzenstorf on August 17, 1943. It was an emergency landing of a Boeing B-17 of the Americans, which was severely damaged during a bombing of the Messers¬chmitt factories near Regensburg. To activate the project again in the present time would be guaranteed to meet with great resistance again, but surely other arguments would now be put forward by the opponents. And anyone who wants to travel from the region to the rest of the world can quickly reach Zurich-Kloten today. Nevertheless, Utzenstorf has sent an important signal on the subject of aviation. The local Ernst Nyffenegger was one of the first pilots of Swissair, which was founded in 1931. His name is a landmark in the history of Swiss civil aviation. And already in 1940 an airfield was used by the military in Utzenstorf. But that's another interesting story in itself. The canton, the city of Bern and the then Bern Airfield Cooperative preferred the practically obstacle-free farmland between Utzenstorf and Kirchberg as a variant for the expansion of the large airport. The plans for the star-shaped runways still have a kind of futuristic character. Four intersecting runways were planned, and the apron and terminals would have been built on the south side of the site. A large terminal hall with a hotel and restaurant and access for buses and cars were also planned, as well as a terminus station with a connection to the national rail network. The airport would have been accessible via the highway between Bern and Solothurn from Fraubrunnen. The highway was not completed until much later, in 1962.
Source: D Region, Henry Oehrli
