Berlin: Teufelsberg - from Wartime rubble to graffiti-covered Spy Center

We started our travels in 2024 at our house in the Ardeche mountains of Southern France.

And - we had four absolutely miserable weeks!!!

While Northern Europe experienced a lovely spring, we stayed mostly indoors, covered in duvets, while persistent rain and even sludge beat against our windows. Well - this is now rainwater under the bridge. And plenty of it!

We survived - and, eventually, we escaped - and yesterday we arrived in a sunny, warm Berlin, where our new neighbors were hanging out in some of Kreuzberg's many outdoor cafes.

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Today we used a lovely Ascension day to make our own ascent onto what is probably one of the weirdest places you can visit in all of Berlin - the top of the Teufelberg mountain far out in the Grunewald forest.

This rubble mountain turned Cold War listening post turned graffiti wonderland is a strange mix of the last 80 years of German turmoil and rebirth.

The approach to Teufelberg is unassuming - a nondescript trail leading up a wooded hill, but as you crest the summit, an entire secret world of graffiti-adorned ruins is unveiled.

You feel almost like an urban explorer when you enter it's crumbling, abandoned buildings, it's winding dark corridors, and towering, tattered geodesic domes. Every surface is coated in spray paint from kids who have come up here for decades, leaving their marks in bold colors and strokes.

The Teufelberg mountain is entirely man-made, built in the aftermath of World War 2 from millions of tons of debris from bombed-out buildings.

When the Cold War tensions mounted between the West and the East in the 1950s, the hill's elevated location made it a prime site for an allied listening station. Rows of utilitarian buildings and geodesic radome coverings were constructed on the summit to house sophisticated monitoring equipment. From this perch, intelligence agents could closely track communications and activities within Communist East Berlin just a few kilometers away.

With the reunification of Germany in 1990, the Teufelberg station was decommissioned and left to stand empty, quickly sinking into disrepair.

But it didn't stay empty for long. Berlin’s street artists soon found a way through the fences

They turned these grim concrete bastions into a massive, illegal open-air gallery, where people have been painting over each other's work for years.

Today, hoodie-wearing thrill gangs roam with cans of Krylon at the ready, and the whole area is just completely covered in paint. The drab surfaces has become canvases, and grey has been replaced by the entire spectrum. It is chaotic and a bit messy, but it works fine.

 

A rickety staircase leads to the roof of the main building, and from here Rita and I had yesterday the occasion to look out over Berlin's funky core, which stretches far below us and out towards the horizon.

The grand view makes Teufelberg a fitting place to take in a city that has seen endless bouts of destruction and rebirth over nearly a century of conflict and repression.

So instead of just gawking at Checkpoint Charlie, or shuffling through another dusty museum, or posing in front of the few remaining chunks of Wall art - here in Teufelberg we had a vivid look at Berlin's true id.

While its origins represent some of the darkest chapters of 20th-century history, the living gallery of Teufelberg has become a great symbol of freedom and artistic dissent. It is a place that tells you everything you need to know about this persistent city that has risen from the ashes time and again, with a small middle finger extended toward authority.

We've arrived in Berlin, and for the next several weeks we look forward to be living at the source of all this weird energy. We are going to explore some of its many corners.