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Teufelsberg, or “Devil’s Mountain,” is an artificial hill in Berlin’s Grunewald district, once part of West Berlin. Rising roughly 80 meters (260 ft) above the surrounding Teltow Plateau—and 120 meters (394 ft) above sea level—it stands as one of the city’s highest points. The hill takes its name from the nearby Teufelssee (“Devil’s Lake”) to the south. Beneath its grassy slopes lies the buried remains of an unfinished Nazi military-technical college, entombed under millions of cubic meters of post-war rubble.

During the Cold War, Teufelsberg became home to Field Station Berlin, a U.S. listening post used for surveillance and intelligence gathering. Today, the abandoned structures remain a striking relic of that era. The site is fenced off but open to visitors for an entry fee of €10, managed by a private organization that maintains access. I visited in 2010 when it was in an abandoned state.