At the beginning of World War I the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin company acquired large estates in Staaken, where from 1915 on it manufactured zeppelin airships and the series of one-off Riesenflugzeug "giant" multi-engined bombers, among the largest of their day anywhere, culminating in the small series of R.VI biplane strategic bombers built by the firm.

The former zeppelin manufacturing halls were turned into the Staaken Studios and used as the location for various film productions, e.g. parts of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

In 1929 the estate was sold to the City of Berlin, while parts of the airport were still used by the Deutsche Luft Hansa for flight training and maintenance purposes.

After World War II Staaken was divided by a territorial exchange contract between the Allies United Kingdom and Soviet Union of 30 August 1945.

From 13 August the same year until its opening and removal after 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall cut through the two parts of Staaken, with one East German border crossing on Heerstraße.

On 1 January 1988 the transit traffic to West Berlin was redirected to the new East German Stolpe checkpoint (a part of today's Hohen Neuendorf)/West Berlin-Heiligensee.

From 1988 to 9 November 1989 the Heerstraße border crossing was open for the highly restricted traffic between West Berlin and East Germany.

Eastern controls were slowly eased into spot checks and finally abolished on 30 June 1990, the day East and West introduced the union concerning currency, economy and social security (German: Währungs-, Wirtschafts- und Sozialunion).