Design
Berlin's 'Devil's Mountain': Built From Rubble, And Going to Waste
One of the most historically resonant sites in Germany’s capital has been left in ruins.
This post is part of a CityLab series on wastelands, and what we squander, discard, and fritter away.
If Germany’s capital were a more rationally run place, you might expect tour buses to fill the streets around Berlin’s Teufelsberg. In a city full of mementos of 20 century history, this artificial hill on the city’s western edge is perhaps the most bizarre. Created soon after World War II, the city’s highest hill is made up of the wreck of a Nazi military academy that has been covered with rubble from wartime bombardment, then later capped by a now derelict American spy station. As if all this wasn’t gothic enough, locals have given the hill a name straight out of the Brothers Grimm: Teufelsberg means Devil’s Mountain.