Teufelsberg

Teufelsberg (German for Devil’s Mountain) is an artificial hill in Berlin, Germany, in former West Berlin. What is buried underneath the hill is real interesting: a Nazi military-technical college designed by Albert Speer. The Allies tried using explosives to demolish the school, but it was so sturdy that covering it with debris turned out to be easier. They used the rubble of 400,000 Berlin buildings destroyed during World War Two to create a hill that was higher than the highest natural hill in Berlin. Simultaneously, Allied listening units would drive to different locales in West Berlin hoping to gain the best vantage point for listening to Soviet and East German military traffic. One such unit drove to the top of Teufelsberg and discovered a marked improvement in listening ability.  The United States National Security Agency (nsa) built one of its largest listening stations on top of the hill, rumoured to be part of the global echelon intelligence gathering network.  The station continued to operate until the fall of East Germany and the Berlin Wall, but after that the station was closed and the equipment removed. The buildings and radar domes still remain in place.