Ghost Stations

(Disclaimer: Joking aside, I fully understand the risks/dangers involved in these adventures and do so in the full knowledge of what could happen. I don't encourage or condone and I accept no responsibility for anyone else following in my footsteps. Under UK law, trespass without force is a civil offence. I never break into a place, I never photograph a place that is currently occupied, as this would be morally wrong and intrusive, I never take any items and I never cause any damage, as such no criminal offences have been committed in the making of this blog. I will not disclose location or means of entry.  I leave the building as I find it and only enter to take photographs for my own pleasure and to document the building.


On a large, global scale I think it can be generally agreed on that we all got pretty lucky with that Cold War malarky, what with the world narrowly avoiding nuclear war and all that. On a closer, more personal scale, peoples lives with impacted and the repercussions can still be seen to this day if one knows where to look. Generally on this blog, with a few notable exceptions, I try to keep the locations vague. Sadly it's difficult to do that when abandoned things are often the consequences of an entire country, and a city within it, being torn in half. I'm referring to Germany, of course.

One thing the Germans do efficiently is run their public transport on time, and for a reasonable price, in complete contrast to the UK where we spent an extortionate amount on inferior performance. However, if you want to catch a train from this station, you're in for a long, long wait. In addition to that, even getting to the elevated station platform is a bit of a scramble. The traditional human ways have been long closed off.

The station owes its existence to a company that was founded in 1847, producing electrical telegraphs and later electric tramways. This company became an industrial behemoth, having offices in thirteen countries before the founder died in 1892. In 1897 they then purchased around 200 hectares of uninhabited land and created a mini metropolis of sorts, consisting of factories for their products and also residential accomodation for their employees.

But by 1914 they had around 23,850 employees, and not all of them lived nearby. As such the company began prioritising facilitating their daily commute, funding the train service on which they would travel to work.
Initially a tramway was constructed in 1905, consisting of six carriages and running about 65 times an hour, but even that couldn't keep up with demand as the employer number skyrocketed, and so the company proposed the construction of this train line.

Of course, the first world war had slowed down progress considerably but with the nearby factories employee numbers now exceeding 55,000, the line was becoming a neccesity. The elevated platform was constructed in 1927, and the first trains started picking up passengers from the station in 1929. It was an instant hit, with trains full of passengers rolling in both directions every five minutes.

To see the platform as it is now, it's sad to imagine it once full of life, with dozens of people waiting for their train, and just going about their daily business.

There's an office here, and it contains a few bits and pieces.

This is an old fuse box. Back in the day fuses commonly screwed into these circular holders, in much the same way one screws in a lightbulb.

Now obviously a raised platform station high above the city was going to have stairs down to ground level, but these ground level access points have long since been bricked up. My hope was to find one that did give me access to the lower floors.

These stairs lead down to this boarded up entrance. Some tenacious person has actually ripped one of the panels down only to find that the entrance is barred as well as boarded. Whoever sealed up the inner station really wanted to make sure nobody ever got in.

 There's a little waiting room here, although if one was to enter in order to wait for their train in shelter, they would be disappointed. The ceiling here is long gone.

Written on the brickwork at the back it says "Message to my dad: Burn Motherfucker" underneath a giant angry head that looks sort of like an orange Dr Phil, but a bit more evil.
I wonder if Dr Phils kids are urban explorers...

Anyway, back in the day, this room would have had a few seats along the side and along the back wall. Allegedly the stations along this line were decorated each with their own unique colours, this one being blue, although these tiles are the only remnant of that, barely remaining under layers of graffiti. 

During World War 2, the company that funded these stations played an important role, although the factories were occasionally bombed, and sometimes workers were killed. By this point they also utilised force labour, as was the Nazi way, but thats another story. As for this station and the train service, it was restricted somewhat when the bridge over the river just down the tracks from here was completely destroyed by allied bombing in1943.

Allegedly as of 1944, the Russians, British and American powers had already met and discussed how they would divide Germany in the event of their victory, but nevertheless with the surrender of the Nazis in May 1945, the Soviet troops were initially the sole occupying force in Berlin. The British and American forces wouldn't arrive until July, and the Soviets decided to use the opportunity. They very kindly repaired that bridge over the river, at least temporarily with a rickety wooden stand-in. But this seemingly kind act was one of self service, as they utilised the train line to plunder West Berlin of machinery, weapons, and whole chunks of railway track, until the British, American and later French forces arrived two months later. 

This stairway down, much to my delight, had an open door at the bottom.

However it just led to this really small continuance of the stairway,and another bricked up wall. It's worth noting that the two stairways face each other, which would indicate that they led to the same place once.

The train service resumed from September 1945, and even became electrified in 1951, and the rickety Russian bridge was replaced in 1953. They still had to replace all the rails that the Russians had taken, and so the line wasn't fully restored until 1956.
But there were looming complications.

It seems that in 1945 there actually wasn't as much animosity between the American, British and Russian forces. At least, nothing in comparison to what was to come in the following decades. During their initial discussions about how to divide Berlin, it was agreed that the Soviet-ran East German railway company would continue running trains through western sectors for the sake of convenience. This line, and the stations along it, were part of those controlled by the East German railway company in spite of them being in West Berlin.

Speaking of other stations, I actually ran into a group of German kids who attempted to banter with me as I clumsily slipped under a fence that crossed the tracks. They soon stopped when they realised that I couldn't understand what they were saying, but they knew sufficient English to tell me that another station did exist further down the tracks, and they were friendly enough to be apologetic for the language gap. I wasn't having any of that. I'm the stranger in their land, after all. And besides, I told them, English people from England can't even speak English. Just look at any debate about Brexit on the internet!

I fucking love the internet. It's an endless source of entertainment, and centuries from now historians will need an English to Idiot dictionary just to understand what the fuck half the people on it are talking about.

Walking to the next station was like taking a leisurely stroll through the woods. Nature is reclaiming all of this, and it was really quite nice. The sun was starting to set though, and I was rather hoping to see what I could while I still had sunlight.

Finally I emerged at the second station.

 So regarding the Soviet control of these West Berlin stations, as you can imagine as the Cold War tensions escalated, this all became a little bit of a legal mess. The borders were becoming more and more defined, and a small strike in 1949 was a taste of things to come. But quite simply, Soviet East Germany had a foot in the door of Capitalist West Berlin, and they weren't keen to budge straight away.

The continuance of the East German state railway running trains through West Berlin is a historic curiosity but at the time it was more of an annoyance. This annoyance turned to anger in 1961 when the Berlin Wall went up. For those who don't know their basic geography, Germany and Berlin were both divided into East and West, with East being taken by the Russians. But the entirety of Berlin was in East Germany, meaning West Berlin was a little island of American, French and British control surrounded by the soviets. With the boundaries solidified by a literal wall, the East German state railway was running trains around West Berlin but the passengers weren't allowed to go anywhere on them except West Berlin. They couldn't even catch the train further west, out of west Berlin into East Germany. Families and friendships were divided by the iron curtain, and the West Berlin populace were wondering, why the fuck are we still paying East Germany for this railway service?

People consequentially began boycotting the train services that were run by the East, unhappy that their money was going into the Russians pockets, and waving banners and slogans reading stuff like "The passenger is paying for the barbed wire," albeit in German. It must have been glorious. I love seeing the people stand up to authority, especially when that authority has done little to earn respect.

Hanging there above the platform is a rusty old sign that still marks this as "Platform 2."

Capitalising on the boycott, West Berlin began running a bus service along the old train routes, the western powers no doubt loving every minute of humiliating the Russians. East Germany lost something like 140 million deutsche marks running mostly empty trains through West Berlin.
Far from the crowds of hundreds who once flooded these platforms, 1976 saw an average of 67 people using the train each day. That sounds like bliss too, getting on an empty carriage after a long day at work.

East Berlin was getting desperate, and tried to make up their losses by selling or leasing their lines to the West Berlin senate. However the Western powers were having too much fun watching the Russians toss their money into a black hole, and politely refused. Eventually the East German state railway had no choice but to reduce the services in 1980. Those who worked on the railways were not happy at having their hours reduced and went on strike. At this point, the East German railway company said "Fuck it," and closed the line and the stations permanently.
They were probably grateful to have an excuse to do so.

The platforms and train lines remain as you see them now in these pictures, giving way to nature and gradually crumbling away. They have a protected status which means they can't be torn down or developed into houses, but the fact that an underground line opened before the train seats even stopped being warm (those seats still being sat on by the minority passengers anyway), it doesn't seem like there's even any need to ever reopen the line. Talks have been had but as of yet nothing has come of it.

Here we have the waiting room of this station, in considerably better condition than the last one. It has a roof, seats and no angry orange Dr Phil effigy. As stated earlier, the stations had their own individual colours, and this one was red.

As with the other platform this one also had stairs leading down the stations street-level interior.

And as with the other, this is also blocked. Again, properly bricked up. Whoever closed off the lower station really wanted to make sure nobody got down there.

I wish I'd gotten a close up of the little rings that hang from the ceiling. There's one in the background of this shot. It would have once housed a clock, but this has since been removed, either by decay or vandalism. Given that the stations have been abandoned for nearly forty years I would be very surprised if I had found them still there.

Much to my delight this stairway still has some of the original overhead signage, albeit masked with graffiti. There's a crest there, and beneath it are the words "Nächste Filiale: Quellweg 10."

Fortunately, I got positively giddy as I looked down these stairs. At the bottom of these stairs, someone had bashed down the brickwork, and given me entrance into the station interior!

We're in!
And if you look closely, you can see the handrail actually protruding through the brickwork. They didn't even remove it when they decided to brick it up, choosing instead to lay the bricks around it. Interestingly the metal plate was put over the hole on the inside, meaning that upon realising that the brickwork had fallen, someone came in through the interior of the station to patch it up. Then at a later date someone had come and broken it down.

I was hoping for vintage posters to still adorn the walls, or perhaps old time tables, or ticket dispensers. After all, if this has been bricked up then the interior could be a perfectly preserved time capsule of 1980s Berlin.

Alas, I was disappointed on that front.

From the main entrance, facing the stairs this is pretty much all that there is, but it's surreal to think that in its heyday this stairway would have hundreds of people ascending and descending on their journeys to work. The main entrance is barricaded too. Somewhere a supermarket is missing a trolley. One wonders how long that's been here for. There are toilets down here, too. Those are always the best parts of any abandoned premises.

Still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.

There was also this stairway in what I can only assume was some sort of staff-only utility or storage section. It led to a featureless attic.

But even the windows here have been bricked up.

It certainly is interesting to see just how tenacious they were with keeping people out. Effort was once put i to these places, but now they simply are being left to rot. It's also sad to imagine the stations once thriving with thousands of passengers, breathing life into this place, and then having them all slowly dwindle in the aftermath of poor decisions.
It's interesting, I think, because as I said at the start, we regard the Cold War on a large scale perspective. The world was at risk of nuclear armageddon, but it never happened. What a relief.
But meanwhile, an entire city was chopped in half. On a personal scale, lives were affected, and the scars are still there. Families were torn apart, friends were separated, businesses collapsed, and this is all still in living memory for many people. The Berlin Wall only came down in 1991. It really puts things into perspective.

In Germany one gets a much more intimate look at the Cold War. It's a very different viewpoint to the bunkers that I see in the UK.

Speaking of which, my next blog post will be on the Shropshire one, and it's also railway related. Then I'm posting on this one again. In the meantime, help the blog out by sharing it, and don't forget to follow my Instagram, like my Facebook and follow my Twitter.

Thanks for reading!

ROC bunker

(Disclaimer: Joking aside, I fully understand the risks/dangers involved in these adventures and do so in the full knowledge of what could happen. I don't encourage or condone and I accept no responsibility for anyone else following in my footsteps. Under UK law, trespass without force is a civil offence. I never break into a place, I never photograph a place that is currently occupied, as this would be morally wrong and intrusive, I never take any items and I never cause any damage, as such no criminal offences have been committed in the making of this blog. I will not disclose location.  I leave the building as I find it and only enter to take photographs for my own pleasure and to document the building.

 Upon seeking out this nuclear monitoring bunker in the remote countryside, I was approached by a group of humans clad in garments that expects (or expected) to see on the guests of Jeremy Kyle. As such I was initially apprehensive. However, they turned out to be quite nice, and cheerfully asked if I was here to see "the bunker," but warned me that it wasn't as pretty as it was in the past.

Isn't that great? This adventure is a refreshing lesson in judging a book by its cover. Personally I loathe generalisations, and try to avoid them, but they're so easy to do! If you see me with a broken nose, don't assume that I've been in a fight, it's just the work of constant facepalming as I fuck up again and again! All it takes is a couple of bad experiences to form a bias, and suddenly we're judging people for the actions of others, and I try to be better than that.

I told the humans that I could guess what it used to look like. After all I've been to around thirty of these now. They're sprinkled all over the British countryside. Perhaps you live near one and don't even know it. The group was genuinely interested as I explained to them what the bunker was, and that there was a thousand more out there, some in great condition, some trashed, some annoyingly sealed off from the world forever, and others being used by landowners. It's a real gamble going out to these places, which is why I tend to add them on to other adventures rather than travel out specifically for them.

I showed the folks some of my pictures from other ROC bunkers, mostly this one because it's the cleanest, and they were genuinely fascinated, not the ignorant yobs I assumed they would be. It's great to be proven wrong. Generalisations are stupid.

One of the guys waved a bong at me before he left and said "By the way, I literally found this in there. It's totally not mine. I'm just cleaning the place up a bit. I'm going to throw it in the bin."
I told him not to worry, because I don't care. Personally I don't partake in the devils lettuce myself, but if you're hurting nobody, then live and let live. It honestly baffles me how angry people get over the things other people do that doesn't effect them. Like gay marriage, for example. If you're against gay marriage, don't get gay married. Duh!I promise you now that you'll be 100% less stressed if you just focus on doing what makes you happy and let everyone else get on with what makes them happy.

Admittedly, I wasn't too keen on climbing down into a bunker that smelled of weed, but here's some pudding to go with the good points I've fed you- Climbing down that ladder, knowing what had gone on, was my choice. If I didn't enjoy it, it would be my fault.

Nuclear Monitoring Bunkers, or ROC posts, are basically little subterranean offices that were once operated by the Royal Observer Corps during the Cold War. This particular one opened in 1962 and was operational right up until 1991. With the threat of armageddon considered a very real possibility in the world following the second world war, things were pretty tense. Across the UK these little underground structures were installed, each equipped to monitor for nuclear blasts and communicate the findings. They also had beds, food rations, and a toilet, in the event that a nuclear strike did happen. Most of them had two bunk beds, but I have found some with three beds. Here's a basic diagram of them that I found on the internet. They had a pretty standard design so this diagram applies to pretty much all of them.

I also found this one which has less detail on the interior but has a pretty firework display.

So you get the idea. They all looked like this- a fourteen foot access ladder, beds at one end, and a desk with all the monitoring and communication equipment down the length of the facility, with some shelves next to the door. The beauty of these things is that even though their design has uniformity, history has shaped them all uniquely. Some are pristine. Some are immaculately preserved. This one, however...

Well, the shelves have survived at least.

Personally, I wasn't expecting much from this one, even if the tracksuit-clad humans outside hadn't told me that there wasn't much left. There's no longer a hatch, which means it's exposed to the elements, and if all the locals know about it, it's only a matter of time before some wazzock with a box of matches gets a little overzealous. It happened at Church Stretton too. This is why I don't point out where they are in my blogs anymore. I think I did with the first two I went to, but luckily the second one was Church Stretton, and its burnt out husk was a real eye opener.

Nevertheless, while the dream is always to find that perfectly preserved ROC post, I appreciate them all, in every variation of decay I find them in. I also appreciate the effort put in by those who worked here. After all, it was a tense era in human history, and really, some of these places have three beds in them. Three! And look at the size of it! Those are some mighty cramped living conditions for these people. I'm not sure I could do it.

Imagine being stationed here with two of your most annoying work colleagues in the event of a nuclear strike. Quite frankly I'd rather die on the surface than live down here with them.
Unless, of course, I added them to the food rations...

Switches and stuff still adorn the walls.

This is an old hand pump. It would have had a far longer handle, and it would have pumped water back out of the bunker to prevent flooding.

This little cupboard would have had a toilet, which was basically a bucket with a seat. If you think being stuck down here with your most annoying work colleagues sounds bad, try it with a toilet that doesn't flush.

That's all I have for this. Unfortunately nuclear monitoring bunkers make for short blog posts. However, I love them, and I will continue to write about them when I come across them.
Having done two blogs now on the Cold War, I'll be blogging about a couple of abandoned train stations next, and then over on my home blog I'll be looking at a train graveyard.
In the meantime, share this blog, and don't forget to follow my Instagram, like my Facebook and follow my Twitter.

Thanks for reading!

Teufelsberg

(Disclaimer: Joking aside, I fully understand the risks/dangers involved in these adventures and do so in the full knowledge of what could happen. I don't encourage or condone and I accept no responsibility for anyone else following in my footsteps. Under UK law, trespass without force is a civil offence. I never break into a place, I never photograph a place that is currently occupied, as this would be morally wrong and intrusive, I never take any items and I never cause any damage, as such no criminal offences have been committed in the making of this blog. I will not disclose means of entry.  I leave the building as I find it and only enter to take photographs for my own pleasure and to document the building.


I had mixed feelings on Teufelsberg. On one hand it's been high on my to-do list for some time, but on the other hand I was expecting an adrenaline fueled stealthy escapade where I narrowly evaded security and climbed the tower to take in the view, and slipped out without anyone knowing that I was ever there.

Well, it wasn't what I was expecting. Nobody cared that I was there. Security are just letting people in at the front gate for a small entry fee, but ever the miscreant I chose instead to roam the outer fence until I found a free way in. Once inside nobody once questioned how I gained entry, simply assuming that I was one of the many people who were wandering around legitimately.

People were sat around in deck chairs with drinks, people were taking selfies with the graffiti. The security had fenced off much of the interior to prevent rooftop access, to give it some degree of safety, but otherwise leaving the place as it is, making a tourist attraction out of decay.
It had a nice chilled out atmosphere. I loved it, but the lack of rooftop access but a big old dent in my mood.

Teufelsberg is amazing. I just got here too late.

Somewhere deep beneath my feet is an old Nazi military academy but theres no trace of that now. It's still there, underground, but when the war ended and the Allies tried to blow it up, they did little more than dent it. This comes as no surprise when one considers that the architect was Albert Speer.

Albert Speer built stuff to last. He was, after all, in charge of reshaping Berlin into a giant symbol city that Hitler called Germania. Germania was perhaps a dream of lunacy if ever there was one. Berlin was to be reshaped around a giant 5km central boulevard. At one end would be a triumphal arch just like the one in Paris, except the Paris one would be able to fit inside it. At the other end of the boulevard they planned to build a colossal dome 820 feet in diameter, so vast that it would have its own internal weather. Much of Berlin was scheduled to be demolished to make way for Germania, whose size and shape made it as much a symbol as it was a city. Hitler wanted there to be no question that Germania was the global capital of his empire in the event that he won.

But he didnt win, and following the war, Berlin was divided. West Berlin, while in the hands of the Americans, British and French was marooned in East Germany which was under Soviet control, and following the war they had a lot of rubble that they couldn't clear out of the city due to these boundaries. In 1950 the solution came to just pile the rubble up over that Nazi military academy that refuses to blow up, plant a few trees to make it pretty, and Voila! We have ourselves a new hill made of some 400,000 bombed houses, and no more Nazi Military Academy!
Oddly enough the job of collecting the rubble for transport was picked up by local women, who became known as the Trümmerfrauen, or Rubble Women.

(Picture not mine, obviously)

Interestingly, the scale in which the Rubble Women worked was greatly exagerrated, making it seem like it was some kind of mass phenomenon, but its actually estimated that only 5% of the female population took part. The truth is, during the war the act of clearing rubble had been given to forced labourers, and after the war it had initially been given to Nazi prisoners of war.  This was found to be insufficient, and so the general public were asked to step up and help out. Nobody was particularly keen on doing it, given that it was traditionally regarded as a punishment, so the media sneakily made a point of showcasing smiling, happy women as low-level propaganda, which is now ingrained into the peoples memory. In exchange for their hard work, and smiling for the camera, the Rubble Women recieved higher food rations.

However, these women did contribute massively to the changing attitude of gender roles, and in addition, Berlin did get a new hill, so it all had a positive outcome.

In 1961, it was discovered that the hill provided the best vantage point for listening to transmissions from Soviet-controlled East Germany, and so in 1963 the listening station formerly known as Field Station Berlin was created on top of the hill, which itself became known as Teufelsberg.

Teufelsberg literally translates to "Devils Hill" but that has nothing to do with the Nazi academy or the American listening station. No, its named after the nearby Teufelssee, or Devils Lake, which itself is so named because it was a Germanic Pagan worshiping site centuries ago. Given that Paganism isn't really about devil worship, it's likely that the term "Devil" was given to it by the early Christians, who despite being a new religion in a species that had already existed for thousands of years, decided that they were right and that all pre-existing belief systems were evil.

Today Teufelsee remains a popular place to go, and naked bathing is permitted, which sounds absolutely amazing. One wonders if the Fuhrer himself ever took a dip.

The graffiti up here is phenomenal! Just look at this! This is probably the best street art I've ever seen!

Teufelsberg wasnt all about spying on the Soviets during the Cold war. In 1955 a ski jump was established here, although the NSA had the ski lift removed due to it somehow disrupting the signal from East Berlin. In contrast, it was discovered that the ferris wheel established during the German-American Volksfest somehow boosted the signal, so they insisted that it stayed up all year round.
It all sounds rather strange to me, but then what do I know about eavesdropping on Russian military operations?

The ski jump was replaced by a larger one in 1962, which presumably didn't disrupt the signal. This was then abandoned in 1969, and as appealing as photographing abandoned ski jumps sounds, they were sadly removed in 1999.

Slipping inside was fairly easy, as loads of street artists have done so before me. But with many of the doors blocked and locked, what I accessed it just a fraction of what is here, with some who I spoke to even saying that the best graffiti is in the inaccessible parts. Some say the Golden Age of Teufelsberg is behind us, adding that it apparently has fewer visitors since the security moved in and gave everyone a means of legitimate access, at the expense of the means to see all of it. Prior to them showing up, this place was allegedly full of life, in much the same way it's impossible to go to Denbigh Mental Asylum without meeting people. Abandoned stuff just attracts people.

This bear warning me of internet privacy is "Erik Rotheim," a character named after the inventor of the spray can, who was created by the street artist Tobo. Tobo has been wall scrawling since he was a child, but his most commonly recognised tag is Erik, who can be found all over Berlin offering random chunks of wisdom. Click the links for his social media

I have no idea what this cyclopean squid creature is, or why its pointing at various symbols, some of which looks like a vagina, but nevertheles I love it.

Many rumours and myths surround this place, which is to be expected given that the NSA's activities here are shrouded in secrecy even to this day. One such rumour was that the NSA did tunnel down into the remains of the Nazi military academy, as well as having an underground submarine base and escape tunnels. Former staff here have dismissed these rumours. They were aware of the Nazi building hidden beneath their feet, but there were never any secret tunnels.
At least, so they say.

Given that I didn't explore the entire place, I can't really comment, but I do find it intriguing. And let's face it, this giant listening station on a hill in West Berlin is about as discreet as an offended teenager on social media. It's practically demanding our attention! And given that it was well within range of soviet weaponry, they'd be stupid not to put a bunker or something under there, albeit maybe not as deep as the Nazi academy.

With the Cold War in full swing, some 1,500 people worked for the NSA here. Apparently it was operated by both British and American staff, but veterans who worked here seem to indicate that it wasn't entirely harmonious, saying "Brits and Americans were both on the Teufelsberg, but they weren't there together." Apparently the British and American workers even had segregated toilets. From what I can gather, the British workers just did whatever the NSA told them to do, and that was that.

But what did the NSA tell them to do? The veterans who worked here are still bound under oath, although some say, without elaborating, that there's a great deal about the Soviet activities that would not be known about if not for those stationed here. Others describe it as more of a forewarning post to monitor for Soviet attack.

While the staff were technically part of the army, wearing the uniform and following the rules, there was a feeling of detachment from the "regular army" as they were often just left to do their thing, whatever their thing was. This seems to have led to a rather lighthearted atmosphere, joking even in a tense situation. Sometimes they'd even play pranks on each other, which I think is great. Laughter, after all, is natures anaesthetic. They gave Teufelsberg a rather tongue-in-cheek unofficial motto- "In God we trust. All others, we monitor."

While they weren't really allowed, some allegedly did mingle briefly with the East Germany guards too, trading pornography and cigarettes for Soviet memorabilia.

Personally, I love that. It reminds me of how the soldiers in the first world war stopped at Christmas to mingle with the enemy, play football and sing carols together. That right there is the triumph of the human spirit, even in the face of potential armageddon, breaking through the bullshit and red tape, and being the happy, social, creatures that we are deep down when we're not being put into stupid situations by the people at the top.

Check it out! It's Wolverine!

Each of the facilities huge globes once housed sophisticated spying equipment, enabling them to listen to radio waves, satellite signals, microwave transmissions and other means of communication.
Some say that there was also radar technology here, but that is false. Radar is used to detect objects such as planes or missiles, and West Berlin had plenty of that already. Teufelsberg was purely for listening, or as one put it, "It was a fucking big ear in front of their ass. The Soviets were pissed that the Big Ear could could pick up their farts."

And the Soviets certainly knew that this place was here. They apparently sent a few spy vehicles to get pictures, but nothing ever really came of that. The US spies stationed at Teufelsberg were simply told to make sure they weren't in any of the pictures.

The writing next to the Ghostbusters logo facetiously advertises a graffiti removal service. The website URL takes you to their instagram.

The cat is another of Tobos creations.

Here it's written "All colours are beautiful."

I really love the positivity here.

Peeking inside through the bars in the gated-off main interior, one can see even more graffiti. All of this is off limits, but from what I've seen online, there's a staircase in there that leads up to the roof and to the main tower.

Field Station Berlin stopped listening to the Soviets in 1992, and all of the equipment was removed. It was used for air traffic control for civilian flights until 1994, and then in 1996 it was purchased with plans to build apartments, a hotel and a spy museum. However those plans fell flat on their face, and the owners simply let it rot.

It was then left to the mercy of urban explorers, photographers, film makers, and street artists. If it looks familiar, perhaps you saw it on TV when they filmed an episode of Covert Affairs here, or if you like your Vampire movies you may have seen it in "We are the night."
If you're a fan of Bob Mould then you may recognise this as being the set of the music video for his song "Lost Faith." He got up onto the roof and everything, lucky bastard.
A whinier song, not really to my taste, is "A million stars" by the Faim. That songs video is also filmed here.

And then in 2007 things got a little weird when David Lynch, director of The Elephant Man and Eraserhead, tried to buy it to turn it into a meditation centre for the Maharishi World Peace Movement. Quite the spiritual chap, he planned on having thousands of students study transcendental meditation and yoga, under a "tower of invincibility."

Sadly David Lynch didn't speak German, and when he attended a press conference to explain his vision, he put a little too much faith in his guru Emanuel Schiffgens to convey his vision.
Perhaps confused by what Lynch meant by a "Tower of Invincibility," Schiffgens attended the conference wearing a flowing white robe and a gold crown, and then simply decided to chant "Invincible Germany," at the crowd, in an attempt to incite them.
Not impressed, someone shouted back "That's what Hitler wanted," to which Schiffgens then not-so-cleverly retorted "Yes but unfortunately he didn't succeed."

The crowd went a little mental, David Lynch was heard to say "I have no idea what he just said but I think it might have been something from the third reich," and suffice it to say his plans for a Happiness Institute never took off.

Oh, Emanuel Schiffgens. Hilarious, but tragic.

Some veterans who were stationed here have expressed a desire to have it become a memorial for Major Arthur D Nicholson, who was shot by a Soviet sentry in 1985 while photographing one of their tank storage facilities. Apparently this was a legitimate Military Liason mission, where small numbers of military and intelligence personel were allowed into each others territory for the sake of monitoring and improving relations, easing the tension and whatnot, so the fact that he was shot while he was in East Berlin legitimately really ruffled feathers. The US treated it as cold blooded murder, made worse by the fact that Nicholson was left to bleed to death, when he could have been saved.

Whatever the future of Teufelsberg, it remains at the moment an ever-evolving canvas, and I love it. This relic from one of the most tense eras in human history has become a work of art.

The "golden age" of exploring Teufelsberg came to an end in 2011 when a chap called Shalmon Abraham started renting the place from the neglectful owners. He put a few goons on security to charge admission and to give tours for 15 Euros, but from what I hear these were not legitimate security. In fact they were squatting on site and got pretty rough with those who tried to gain access.

In Shalmon Abrahams defence he actually invited street artists to come here to decorate it as they wanted, creating a win-win situation where he could make the facility visually interesting for those paying to visit, while the street artists would have somewhere iconic to work without scrutiny.
Hilariously, Shalmon Abraham then underestimated the power of the internet, advertised an open day and ended up with thousands attending what became a massive party. It must have been brilliant.
But for Shalmon Abraham, it was a bit of a nightmare as local authorities questioned him making money from allowing thousands of people to roam around a health and safety nightmare.

It turned out that Shalmon wasn't even paying rent on the place, nor was any of the income going towards conservation, and he was eventually evicted.

Still, the owners seemed to have seen something in Shalmon Abrahams vision, realised that money could be made out of Teufelsberg, and began plans to open it as a beer garden and art gallery. Sadly, the dangerous aspects such as the roof, and the tower, have been closed off from the public now, but the art and atmosphere make the visit worthwhile.


Alas, the tower escapes me, and that makes me sad.

Just look at this beauty. I bet the view is amazing.
Oh Teufelsberg, I'll enjoy you in your entirety someday, I promise. I will someday get onto your big phalic... um... moving on.

Nearby was this building that no longer stands, but was clearly once part of the facility. There's a toilet here, for those who don't mind doing their business surrounded by woodland and the wild boar who roam the hill. It's still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs

I'm no architectural expert but I presume these were support collumns for a floor that would have been above. Now they're canvases.

And look,Tobo strikes again!
"You can't get lost if you don't know where you are going."
"It's quite easy to reason logically and still be wrong."
"A negative mind will never give you a positive life."
"A conclusion is simply where you stopped thinking."

And with that, I need to sit down. This is too much wisdom for my tiny head.

Written on the floor it says "Tourists not welcome," but someone has crossed out "Tourists" and written "Nazis" instead.
Much better.

We get these in the UK too, those urban explorers who seem to think that they own the hobby and go on about how they've been doing it for years, how they discovered the abandoned location first and how everyone else doing it today isn't a real urban explorer, like there's an elite club of people who are the only ones allowed to do it.
So basically they're hipsters. And from what I can tell most urban explorers laugh at them. 

I personally would like to be more positive, so I try to mingle with those who love the hobby for what it is, without shitting on others, and I always enjoy seeing negative graffiti corrected.

A set of stairs lead down to the carpark, similarly decorated with street art.

And here we have two marvelous relics.

Were these vehicles owned by former staff at this place? With the security fence up in an attempt to make people pay at the gate, this carpark is also now fenced off, meaning these are now part of Teufelsbergs history.

There is something interesting on the horizon for Teufelsberg. In 2020 the data archives will be revealed to the public, and we'll know for the first time exactly what went on here, what was listened to, and what role Teufelsberg played in the war that thankfully never happened.

Allegedly also the rooftop and tower will also someday be reopened to the public, and when that happens I will be back here, all over it like a rash.

In the meantime, share this blog because social medias changing algorithms are a pile of wank. It seems that simply hitting "Follow" and "Like" doesn't always mean you'll see, and sharing it when you do certainly helps with that. But if you are content to just follow and like, then check out my Facebook page, my Instagram and my Twitter.
Next, I'm checking out a cold war bunker and then I'm checking out some abandoned train stations. And soon after that, we have big plans.

Thanks for reading!