Cologne Bonn Airport's civil history began in the late 1930s, when an older field gave way to a new airport at Wahn, southeast of Cologne. That older field, Butzweilerhof, had served the city since the earliest days of flight, decades before jets arrived. The Luftwaffe and then the Royal Air Force used the site after the war, and scheduled civil flights finally returned there again in 1957.
Its role grew fast because Bonn was the capital of West Germany, and Wahn became the government airport, handling state visits and official flights. A distinctive star shaped Terminal 1, designed by Paul Schneider-Esleben and opened in 1970, let passengers walk only a short distance from car to plane door. Diplomats and world leaders regularly passed through its gates, since Bonn often hosted foreign dignitaries.
The airport was renamed after Konrad Adenauer, West Germany's first chancellor, in 1994. Losing the capital to Berlin in the 1990s could have hurt it badly. Instead, a rare 24 hour flying permit turned it into a major cargo hub for UPS and later FedEx. On the passenger side, it became a budget airline stronghold, starting with Germanwings in 2002, and later joined by Eurowings and Ryanair.