Berlin Teufelsberg (ePub)

The plans for the athletic development of the mountain had, however, always been public and once again demonstrated: Berliners were never shy about offering a stage even to basically meaningless things. Even the rubble of their destroyed city could be put to good use! But what does a real mountain need? First of all, one should be able to ski there in the winter, and children should be able to ride sleighs. In summer, Berliners wanted to be able to climb like in the Alps. It would alsbe nice to grow wine on the southern side of the mountain, like in the Rhein Valley! And on the peakof the new 115-metre-high mountain? Berliners would surely have copied the castle Stolzenfels, had the US occupying forces not already discovered the highest West Berlin summit for their own purposes in 1955. The Teufelsberg was, after all, the last point of elevation before Moscow, a former US spy remembers! A whole 100 metres high! And the best thing: this very mountain was located - it couldn't be more convenient - on the NATO-controlled island of West Berlin, far behind the Iron Curtain - in the middle of the Eastern bloc. The "Field Station Berlin" (FSB), operated by the National Security Agency (NSA), in which the British intelligence units also worked, belonged to the worldwide wiretapping network Echolon. It was created after World War II with the aim of listening in on and thereby controlling the entire political and military communication of the Soviet Union. They intercepted all reachable electronic data and processed it on the NSA's huge super computers in Ford Meade, Maryland. Whether somewhere in the world a tank is moving or a rocket being aimed at a destination, an ambassador is on the phone with his mistress or a member of congress insulting the opposing party, a building blueprint is transmitted or an agent receiving a message: electronic signals are created everywhere and can be listened to. The Teufelsberg in Berlin was an ideal location for this. Barely a hill existed

SUBMARINES IN THE GRUNEWALD? FROM A GRAVE OF RUBBLE TO THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN IN BERLIN SNOWMEN, HIKERS AND SOLDIERS AMERICA'S BIG EARS "LIGHTNING" STRIKES THE TEUFELSBERG HOT JOB IN THE COLD WAR SECRETS AND RUMOURS FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE FROM PRIME LAND TO HIKING PATH? GALERIE SOURCES Books Articles TV and Film Images

Klaus Behling

Born 1949, studied Asian Studies at the Humboldt University Berlin with a focus on Cambodian language and culture. He worked as a diplomat in Laos and Cambodia from 1972 to 1977, as cultural attaché in Romania from 1981 to 1987. After the reunification Behling worked as senior assistant at the Institute for International Relations in Potsdam as an Indochina expert. From 1991 until his retirement, he was a journalist with Springer Publishing. Behling published work on topics such as GDR espionage, the news service of the National People's Army, and the allied military missions in Germany.

Andreas Jüttemann

Born 1985, studied Psychology and Urban Planning with a focus on cultural and political psychology at the Free University Berlin and in Bremen. He had already discovered his personal field of interest "historical urbanistics" during his school days. In 2010 he founded a small tour guide company alongside his studies, with which he was able to offer the first guided tours of the former allied listening station on the Berlin Teufelsberg, which had been inaccessible for 40 years.