The Gollenberg @museum.de

The local hill known as Gollenberg rises exactly 109.4 metres (or 358 feet and 11 inches) above sea level. By the standards of the Havelland region, that’s quite high. The range of hills in the Rhinow district originated in the last Ice Age. The Gollenberg, the Hauptmannsberg, the Osterberg and the neighbouring hills are terminal moraines and were formed as the glaciers retreated. At their feet lie the town of Rhinow and the municipality of Gollenberg with its districts Stölln, Schönholz and Neuwerder.

In the late 19th century, when Otto Lilienthal discovered the Rhinow hills, they were still largely without tree cover. So he was able to launch himself in all directions. After all, a glider pilot – like any bird, incidentally – has to take off into the wind in order to gain sufficient lift to fly away.

In around 1894, the world's first airfield was built here on the Gollenberg. At first, it was only used by Otto Lilienthal, who soared high above the heads of an astonished public ... and suffered his fatal accident right here, on the 9th of August 1896. Nevertheless: the history of human flight had begun, and other aviation pioneers followed. In around 1910, there was Waldemar Geest, who had purchased a flying machine from Lilienthal's brother Gustav.

In the summer of 1936, even Charles Lindbergh dropped by, as did Helene Ritter, Otto Lilienthal's daughter. Three years later, the then head of the gliding school set a distance record. After taking off from the Gollenberg, he made it all the way to the town of Tiefenried in Upper Bavaria—a distance of 523 kilometres or 325 miles.

The Gollenberg has served as a training centre for would-be glider pilots for more than a century and the 72-hectare (or 178 acre) airfield is still used by gliding enthusiasts today. Otto Lilienthal had always dreamt of establishing gliding as a mainstream sport. Today, the aviation club operating on the Gollenberg bears his name: "Flugsportverein Otto Lilienthal".