Teufelsberg: Berlin Travel Guide (4.4★)

A hill made of a destroyed city

Teufelsberg isn’t a natural hill. After 1945, trucks hauled rubble from bombed Berlin out to Grunewald and piled it here for about two decades. Under the debris is an unfinished Nazi military college designed by Albert Speer. It proved too solid to blow up, so they buried it.

During the Cold War, American and British intelligence put a listening station on the summit to eavesdrop on East Germany. What’s left today is a cluster of white radar domes on concrete towers, their fabric skins torn and flapping. You can see them above the tree line from across western Berlin.

What you walk through

The site is fenced, and you pay at the gate. Past it, every wall is covered in graffiti and large murals that get painted over and replaced, so the open-air gallery never looks the same twice. The ground is a mix of cracked asphalt, gravel and broken concrete.

The highlights:

• The tallest tower. Stairs lead up to the top radome. Inside, the dome sends any sound back at you in strange, long echoes, and visitors queue up to hum, clap or sing into it.
• The tower platforms. The panorama takes in the Grunewald canopy, the Funkturm, Charlottenburg and the Mitte skyline in the distance.
• The lower halls. These are long, empty rooms with murals, blown-out windows and scraps of old installations.

Getting up the hill

From S-Bahn Heerstraße (S3, S9), go south along Teufelsseechaussee into the forest. It’s about a 30-minute walk, and the last stretch is a steady climb on sandy track. Buses M49 and X34 stop on Heerstraße nearer the forest edge, which cuts the walk a little.

Plan around the gate hours, which are 11am to 7pm every day. You need two to three hours for the walk in, the towers and the walk out.

Nearby spots worth pairing with it:

• Drachenberg. The neighbouring rubble hill has open grassy slopes where people fly kites on windy weekends.
• Teufelssee. This small forest lake sits at the foot of the hill and is a classic Berlin summer swimming spot.
• Grunewald trails. The forest paths run all the way down to S-Bahn Grunewald (S7) if you’d rather leave a different way.

Climbing the towers sensibly

Teufelsberg is one of western Berlin’s best-known day trips and sits right on the Instagram circuit, so you won’t have it to yourself. The gates open at 11am. Going on a weekday and reaching the gate early usually puts you ahead of the weekend groups who come uphill after lunch.

A few things that help:

• Pay at the entrance. Have cash with you as a backup, and check the official Teufelsberg site for the current price and any guided tours. The tours cover the station’s spy history in more detail than the site itself shows.
• Wear proper shoes. Broken glass, open stairwells and missing railings are part of the place. Sandals are a bad idea.
• Bring water and food. There’s nothing to buy on the walk up through the forest, and the hilltop is exposed to wind.
• Wait your turn in the dome. The echo only works when it’s quiet, so people take turns. Respect a small group’s moment before you make your own noise.
• Leave the art alone. The murals are curated, so don’t add tags of your own.
• Watch the clock. The forest paths are unlit, so start heading down well before 7pm in winter, when it gets dark early.