Teufelsberg is German for devil’s mountain, a man-made hill in Berlin Charlottenburg, overlying Albert Speer’s unifinished military facitities. The hill is made out of millions of cubic meters of war debris, cleared from Berlin after the war and is reaching a total of 114 metres. For more than 20 years up to 800 cargo trains daily loaded their rubbish on top of the Teufelsberg. It is the highest peak of the city. The artifically created mountain offered winter sport faciliteis such as a toboggan run, a ski slope and a ski jumping hill and lift. After the recreational set up was completed the US Army discovered the mountain as an excellent location for a detention facility. The NSA used the facility as part of the worldwide espionage network Echelon.

Due to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the decaying relations between East and West the Teufelsberg became highly important for West Germany to know what East Germany was doing during the time of the separation. Teufelsberg became a top-secret spy facility, the old bugging-device was
able to reach signals up to 700 kilometres away and remained in use until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Even though there are several man-made rubble mounds in Germany and Europe, Teufelsberg is unique, as the never finished Wehrtechnische Fakultät (military technical college) is buried beneath it. Tours around the area have been offered since 2011. When going on a tour of the Teufelsberg you are being set back in time to post-war Berlin. Teufesberg is a great stop to include on every teams incenitve in Berlin as it not only offers a breath-taking view over Berlin but also a jump into Germany’s past, back to the Geoploitical struggle between East and West during the Cold War. Nowadays the site is being redeveloped and re-purposed, hosting multiple community projects as well as street art from world-famous artists.