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.