The history of Teufelsberg (“Devil’s Mountain”) is short but strange. It begins during the Second
World
War, with the
construction of a vast military academy in the sprawling Grunewald Forest,
several
kilometres west of Berlin. Under the supervision of Nazi architect Albert Speer, this was
devised as part
of Hitler’s vision of a grand capital on the scale of those of the ancient
civilisations. This grand ambition
was complemented by Speer’s developing theory of ruinvalue:
by observing rigorous methods of
construction, buildings could be created not as
transient, utilitarian structures but with the ambition that,
as they decay their ruins remain as
future monuments to the power of their creators. Yet, following
the onset of war with Stalinist
Russia, shortage of raw materials dictated that construction must cease,
and the academy was
left unfinished.
In the wake of the war, British and American forces occupied the Grunewald region and formed
plans
to use the unfinished academy as an allied headquarters. However, the buildings could not
be converted
satisfactorily, and so they attempted to demolish them using explosives. The solid
stone structures,
built with eternity in mind, withstood the blasts. An alternative solution was
therefore executed: the
rubble of tens of thousands of Berlin’s bombed buildings was piled atop
to conceal the site, and covered
with grass seed. Rising 80m above the Brandenburg plains,
Devil’s Mountain was born, and with its
unbounded views to the communist East, became home to
one of the NSA’s key
radar
stations and
listening posts in the ECHELON network.
Within decades, the cold war ended and the buildings were
stripped of their equipment and left derelict.
Germany’s economic boom led a trail of venture capitalists to the site,
who invested several million
dollars to develop the site into a business and leisure complex. However, the economy began
to sink,
and Teufelsberg was once more abandoned.
by Daniel Jones
