The most beautiful places in Berlin: Teufelberg

Teufelsberg (Devil's mountain) is the name of one of the most interesting places in Berlin that is often not included in the usual tourist guides or at least not in line with the city's leading attractions, but still well worth a visit

Photo: CC by 2.0 Jussi Savolainen

Welcome to Mount devil. This is the highest point in what was once West Berlin. 120 meters of man-made-hill which consists entirely of debris. The abandoned constructions all around create the ambience of a science fiction movie. The area is managed by a private company which too abandoned its plans to build a tourism project. While the municipality had thought to buy the place it too gave up the idea for the time.

The site, north of Grunewald is where the ruins of the city that was bombed into rubble during World War 2 was brought to, back in the 50’s. Then came the political rift between the United States, Britain and France on one side and the Soviets on the other side. The western city of Berlin was surrounded by an area controlled by the Soviets. To take care of the ruins is was necessary to find a site inside West Berlin that will be far enough from the city center but not too far so as not to make transportation costs too high. This is how the hill was born.

Millions of cubic meters of waste

Every day trucks stopped and unloaded the rubble of Berlin in what has become for millions of cubic meters of concrete, stones, sand and other materials that had no use. Eventually all these created the impressive mountain which became the highest point in West Berlin. This summoned US intelligence officials. The Americans revealed that the reception of transmissions from the hill obtained fairly good quality and have decided to set up a large signal-listening base. Since the British were the ones that controlled the area, American troops were arriving from their own territories and returning home there after.

Attempts to establish a Teufelsberg sports center which will cater for surfers, for example, succeeded for a while in the sixties but ultimately shut down at the request of the Americans claiming that it interferes with their intelligence activities. Thus, right up to the fall of the Wall, the place was buzzing with intelligence agents.

Shhh … We’re listening

After the reunification of Germany the base was evacuated and the intelligence activities discontinued (at least in this site). A private company bought the mountain in the nineties with the aim of turning it into a tourist site, but the investment has not proven itself and the project went down the drain.

Since then, various ideas were raised like buying the mountain by the municipality or starting a reforestation of the hill to beautify it. Currently none of these projects went forward and the huge gulf ball like houses that once inhabited antennas remain closed and make it all look like something apocalyptic.

Although the region is controlled by a private company, guided tours can be booked. One can enjoy a perfect combination of landscape, nature and a lot of stories on much different days of the city of Berlin.