Insider tour guides were treated to a rewarding and educational day out visiting three iconic Berlin sites associated with WWII and the Cold War.
First up was the iconic Teufelsberg Listening Station located on a rubble hill, which covers the former Albert Speer designed massive Nazi ‘Wehrtechnike Faculty (Military Technical College), deep in the Grunewald forest.
Starting in 1963 the US NSA built a listening (spy) station there, as part of their Europe-wide ECHELON system. The goal was to garner military and/or economic news of relevance about countries of the Warsaw Pact. At its height 1500 people worked here manually gathering, translating, deciphering and forwarding information.
Abandoned and gutted of all technical equipment post German reunification, in the 90s this complex became an illegal rave and graffiti location. Currently it is an event location, and an eerie reminder of dark times past.
Our group was given an enthralling historical account of this site by top Berlin tour guide, Jörg Rupert Schöpfel.
Second site visited was the Berlin Commonwealth cemetery. Here, mainly airmen killed over Berlin during WWII are buried.
All Commonwealth graves are adorned with uniform headstones of Portland stone from England. Nationalities buried here are: UK – 2692, Australia – 228, Canada – 527, India – 51, New Zealand – 56, South Africa – 31, Poland – 5, Unidentified – 8.
Some of those who are buried here were POWs
““Their name lives for evermore”
The third site visited was the absolutely exemplary Military History Museum – Gatow Airport.
There we were treated to an excellent tour of the Luftwaffe during the Nazi era by their top class in-house guide, Stefan Horn.
Above, a retired renowned Starfighter jet (also known as the ‘widowmaker’) with vertical booster and nuclear payload.
This ‘Dakota’ is a long way from home.
Heinkel bomber from WW2.
A large part of our discussion at this location was taken up by the massive human cost suffered by forced laborers and concentration camp inmates in building and maintaining the doomed Nazi air force.
The Military History Museum – Gatow Airport, with its outdoor and indoor exhibition spaces, it a treasure trove of information about the history of the Luftwaffe since its inception in 1884!
