Teufelsberg, the Spy Station on the Devil's Mountain
In a Berlin forest, a hill made of the rubble of a destroyed city hides an unfinished Nazi college. On top, white domes once listened to the Eastern Bloc.
What was reported
After the Second World War, much of Berlin lay in ruins. The rubble was carted to the Grunewald forest and piled into a hill about 80 metres high, burying an unfinished Nazi military college that had proved too solid to demolish. It was named Teufelsberg, the Devil's Mountain.
During the Cold War, American and British intelligence built a listening station on the summit, with large white radar domes, to intercept communications from East Germany and the Soviet bloc. It was abandoned after the Cold War ended.
Explanations offered
The station is now a ruin covered in graffiti, and an open-air art gallery. Inside the largest dome, sounds echo in strange ways, so that a whisper can seem to come from everywhere at once. Its history as a secret listening post made it a magnet for stories.
- When
- Built in the 1950s and 1960s; abandoned in the 1990s
- Where
- Teufelsberg, Grunewald, Berlin, Germany
- Witnesses
- Cold War personnel and visitors
- Status
- A real place
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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