Teufelsberg

An artificial hill built from 26 million cubic metres of World War II rubble in the Grunewald forest. The US National Security Agency built a listening station on its summit to intercept Eastern Bloc communications during the Cold War. The abandoned geodesic radomes are now a street art destination and offer panoramic views of Berlin.

Teufelsberg (Devil’s Mountain) rises 120 metres above sea level, making it the highest point in western Berlin. The hill was created between 1950 and 1972 by dumping an estimated 26 million cubic metres of wartime rubble from the destroyed city, enough to bury a buried Nazi military-technical college designed by Albert Speer that lay beneath.

During the Cold War, the US National Security Agency (NSA) and British intelligence services operated a sophisticated listening station on the summit, housed beneath distinctive geodesic radomes. From this vantage point, they could intercept radio and telephone communications across the Eastern Bloc, making Teufelsberg one of the most important signals intelligence sites in Western Europe.

After reunification, the listening station was abandoned and the equipment removed. The site has since become an unofficial street art destination, with the derelict buildings and radomes covered in murals and graffiti. Guided tours offer access to the ruins and panoramic views across Berlin from the hilltop. Despite several failed development proposals over the years, Teufelsberg remains now in ruins, a Cold War ghost on a mountain of World War II debris.

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