Teufelsberg · Listening to the World from a Pile of Rubble

Teufelsberg, west of Berlin, is a man-made hill: rubble from buildings destroyed in the Second World War was piled here, and beneath it a never-finished Nazi military technical college is said to lie buried.

During the Cold War the Americans and the British built a listening station on the hill, with domed antenna covers in a row, to intercept communications from Eastern Europe. After the Wall fell the station was abandoned, and the white spheres stayed on the summit for thirty years.

Those who go up say that sounds “that should not be received” can be picked up here. Today it is a park, and in summer people fly kites on the slopes.

Urban Legends / Berlin · Germany / 1968