A Tale of Teufelsberg, an Abandoned Listening Station in Berlin

Teufelsberg Listening Station, Berlin, Germany, 2011

Teufelsberg, or translated in German "the Devils Mountain", is an interesting place to visit. In the past you would have to have snuck in thru the double layer of fence surrounding it. Many graffiti artists have done this thru the past years. Guided tours (in German and English) to the former NSA field station have been offered by a student entrepreneur since February 2011. This has been the first opportunity for Berlin inhabitants and visitors to legally visit the Teufelsberg area finally after all these years.

Field Recordings from Teufelsberg Listening Station Berlin, Germany by RichardDevine

 First Floor, Teufelsberg, Listening Station, Berlin, Germany, 2011

The Teufelsberg is a hill in Berlin, Germany, in former West Berlin. It rises about 80 meters above the surrounding Brandenburg plain, more precisely the north of Berlin's Grunewald forest. It is an artificial hill with a curious history: it was built by the Allies after the Second World War from the rubble of Berlin during the following twenty years as the city was rebuilt. One estimate for the amount of rubble is about 12 million cubic meters, or about 400,000 buildings. It is as high as the highest natural hill (Großer Müggelberg) in the Berlin area.

Graffiti inside a room in Teufelsberg, 2011

The US National Security Agency (NSA) built one of its largest listening stations on top of the hill, rumored to be part of the global ECHELON intelligence gathering network. "The Hill", as it was known colloquially by the many American soldiers who worked there around the clock and who commuted there from their quarters in the American Sector, was located in the British Sector. Prior to establishing the first permanent buildings there in the very late 1950s, Mobile Allied listening units had driven to various other locales throughout West Berlin hoping to gain the best vantage point for listening to Soviet, East German, and other Warsaw Pact nations military traffic. One such unit drove to the top of Teufelsberg and discovered a marked improvement in listening ability. This discovery eventually led to a large structure being built atop the hill, which would come to be run by the NSA. The station continued to operate until the fall of East Germany and the Berlin Wall, but after that the station was closed and the equipment removed. The buildings and radar domes still remain in place.

Teufelsberg, view from inside the gate looking up at two towers, 2011

Teufelsberg's origin does not in itself make Teufelsberg unique, as there are many similar man-made rubble mounds in Germany and other war-torn cities of Europe. The curiousness begins with what is buried underneath the hill: a Nazi military-technical college designed by Albert Speer. The Allies tried using explosives to demolish the school, but it was so sturdy that covering it with debris turned out to be easier.

Top 5 Books to Buy Before Visiting Berlin

I've purchased a lot of Berlin related books over the years. Here are a selection of the top 5 that I actually use regularly and find helpful in learning about Berlin and getting around as well as being inspired as well.

berlin by jason lutes

5. German to English Dictionary

Any basic one will do. This will help improve your language learning.

4. Lonely Planet - Berlin City Guide
This is a nice overview of the city, try to get a fairly new copy because many of the smaller restaurants and art venues change from year to year. Lonely Planet also offers the Berlin guide in iOS format. I have both and they are about the same, although the book version does seem to be a bit more useful since you can more easily look at the maps and mark the pages you are interested in visiting. $14

3. MoleSkin - Berlin Edition
The Berlin edition of the MoleSkin books is a perfect notebook to travel to Berlin with and capture all your contacts, notes and memories of your journey. It also includes a really nice map of the city and map of the U-Bahn (train) stations which comes in handy in this compact format. As with all of the MoleSkin products this book is solid and well designed and they great for capturing your inspirations. Price: $20

2. Lonely Planet - German Phrasebook
This almost pocket sized book is the perfect little book to have with you while you travel and need to figure out the most basic vocabulary. With a 2000 word two-way dictionary it provides a lot for such a little book.  Price: $7.99

1. Berlin by Jason Lutes - Graphic Novel

The graphic novel series Berlin written and illustrated by Jason Lutes is a cool way to get inspired on the old city of Berlin as seen thru the interesting, almost film noir style black and white graphic novel. This is in German and a fun way to practice up on your german - but you can just look at the hundreds of pretty pictures as well. Price: 14 Euro

Review: Mind Snacks - German

MindSnacks builds delightful educational games for learners of all ages. We believe that education is unnecessarily associated with blandness and we're here to change that with our products.

Mind Snacks - German [screenshot]

Become a language wizard! Learn vocabulary, reading, writing, listening & conversation skills. Watch yourself improve with built in analytics software. MindSnacks accurately personalizes your experience based on your progress. There are over 1500 hand-picked words, phrases, audio clips, & pictures jam-packed into 50 lessons -- your brain will always have something to chew on day after day!

Mind Snacks - Spanish [screenshot]

Mind Snacks - Spanish [screenshot]

Mind Snacks - German [screenshot]

Mind Snacks - Spanish [screenshot] 

4 of 5

This game has been my favorite on my iPod it's fun and I'm learning at the same time. I highly recommend checking this out if you are trying to learn a new language. I'm using the German edition and it's one of my most favorite iOS apps.

Have you played Mind Snacks - German? Have you played one of the other versions? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.

Top 5 Interesting Places to Visit in Berlin

To choose the Top 5 interesting places to visit in Berlin is not a simple list to put together. Of course it depends on what aspect you are interested, the history or the present scene. This list is focusing on the particularly unique places that you may not have heard of before or considered worthwhile.

5. Liquidrom
This is a spa but I listed it here because there is very interesting architecture for the building and they have a famous indoor swimming pool with an underwater sound system. If you check out their website for a schedule they sometimes have live DJ's playing music on the underwater sound system - this was strange enough to make it to the list. Visit their website here for more information; liquidrom-berlin.de/en/

4.  SpreePark Berlin
Now this place has quite a history and you will need to make an appointment in order to get a legal tour of the place. But I would highly recommend taking the time to do this, an abandoned theme park is very interesting especially on a lightly rainy day.

SpreePark Berlin. An abandoned playground.

3. The Art Bunker
An amazing rotating, every 2 years, collection of contemporary art. You will need to book a tour for this in advance in order to get in. I highly recommend this.

2. The Wall
If you've never seen it you should go and check out the remaining bits of wall as well as the missing wall  that has been marked on the ground.

1. Teufelsberg
This place translates to the Devils Mountain so you already know it's not a normal place. But add in the fact that it's an NSA listening station and it's been heavily covered in graffiti in recent years - this is something you should try to see and hear in person if possible. Read more about visiting Teufelsberg and it's history in my article titled A Tale of Teufelsberg.

Teufelsberg, Berlin, Germany

To give you an example of how creepy it can sound here is a recording by sound designer Richard Devine from Teufelsberg Listening Station;

  Field Recordings from Teufelsberg Listening Station Berlin, Germany by RichardDevine

Review: Who Is Oscar Lake?

Who Is Oscar Lake? is supposedly the first language-learning program of its kind so I decided I would check it out. I'm trying to learn German so I wanted to use it for that purpose. It also sounds like a pretty cool game at first. No repetitive drills or endless vocabulary lists instead, Oscar Lake plunges you directly into a foreign city where you must solve a puzzling mystery in a new language.

Who Is Oscar Lake? [screenshot]

Experts agree that language immersion is the most effective way to learn a second language so I'm all up for a gaming environment to practice my new language. With Oscar Lake you learn by hearing, seeing and doing. And because you interact directly with all the characters you meet, you control the pace of the story, the speed of the learning and even the outcome of the game. With its multiple possible endings, Oscar Lake can make you the hero who recovers the stolen diamond or the sucker who ends up taking the rap!

OK so at first I'm getting very excited about this - especially the prospect of multiple endings. Unfortunately as soon as I loaded it onto my MacBook Pro 15" laptop I quickly started to lose my enthusiasm. The game was originally released in 1995 and programmed in Flash and it shows. The screen was very small on my screen to my surprise and the speed of the game and bad response from multiple mouse clicks reminded me of the 90's. Who Is Oscar Lake's simple point-and-click mechanics, use of recorded speech, and mix of pre-rendered backgrounds with live action video represent common development techniques of the 1990s.

As an archive of gaming this game is an interesting archive with interesting moments at points throughout the game but overall I can't say I would recommend it for learning a new language. If they could develop something modern with better controls and updated graphics this could be a really interesting concept - but I found it to be difficult to learn with the buggy performance and interface. If you are curious about this game and want to track it down you can start your search on their website which appears that it hasn't been updated since 2003; whoisoscarlake.com

2 of 5

Have you played Who Is Oscar Lake? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.

Top 5 Contemporary Art Galleries to visit in Berlin

This list is from the perspective of a first-time visitor to Berlin. Once you become familiar with Berlin you would probably want to dig deeper and seek out more of the smaller, independent galleries and find many exhibitions that are happening regularly. My Top 5 is just a sampler that mixes various sized institutions. This should only be considered as a starting point because there are 100's of quality galleries in Berlin to explore.

5. AUTOCENTER

4. Deutsche Guggenheim

3. Galerie Max Hetzler

2. Bunker

1. Hamburger Bahnhof

Best Travel Advice When Traveling Abroad

The best travel advice I can give for traveling abroad is to plan ahead. You will thank yourself if you spend some extra time packing the right items, doing your research on what you want to visit and where you want to stay. I can give you a few tips to point you in the right direction and I encourage my readers to post their own advice in the comments section.

Kreuzberg Street Festival, Berlin, Germany, 2011.

Plan Your Trip

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch you may want to download an iOS advice to help you with you planning. One such application is TripCase, it has a variety of tools to help you take notes on your trip and better prepare for a trip. If you fly on Delta I would recommend checking out their iOS app called Fly Delta. I used this for my last trip and it was useful for keeping my basic information rather than me having to create a printout. Also, they keep adding new features.

Torstrasse in the winter, Berlin, Germany, 2011

Pack Well

Use the vacuum sealing bags available at many travel shops or Target. These things really work and shrink the size of your clothes! Also consider packing a back inside of your bag - this way you have an extra bag to come home with all the new things you pick up on your travels.

Add More

I will continue to add to this article but what are your suggestions for the most streamlined traveller? Post your comments and suggestions below.

Review: German Numbers

German Numbers is an iOS game for iPhone/iPod Touch. The application is well made and it's setup to operate like a game with scores and statistics. The purpose of the app is to teach you to recognize numbers in German. There are three modes.

In Listen mode you type in the spoken number. In Speak mode you type the number that you wish to be spoken and in read mode you type in the number for the displayed work. This all sounds simple but for a new learner this process definitely helps you learn your german words thru repetition.

German Numbers [screenshot]

2 of 5

Overall I was happy learning my numbers but after a few days I started to lose interest. I think the problem is that it just isn't a lot of fun to play day after day. If there were more variations in graphics or game types I think it would be easier to play this regularly. I think with a few updates this could be a much better app, although for free I'm still going to recommend downloading it for anyone who is trying to learn or improve their German. For $1.99 you can buy the full version.

Download German Numbers (free) | Download German Numbers


Have you played German Numbers? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.