Teufelsberg (German for Devil’s Mountain) is a man-made hill in Berlin, Germany, in the Grunewald locality of former West Berlin. It rises about 80 metres above the surrounding Teltow plateau and 120.1 metres above the sea level, in the north of Berlin’s Grunewald Forest.
It was named after the Teufelssee (Devil’s lake) in its southerly vicinity. The hill is made of rubble, and covers an under-construction Nazi military-technical college (Wehrtechnische Fakultät). During the Cold War, there was a U.S. listening station on the hill, Field Station Berlin.
After the Communist putsch in the city parliament of Greater Berlin (for all four sectors of Berlin) in September 1948, separate parliaments and magistrates were formed for East and West Berlin. This also ended much of the cooperation between West Berlin and the state of Brandenburg, surrounding West Berlin in the North, West and South. While part of the rubble from destroyed quarters in East Berlin was deposited outside the city boundary, all the debris from West Berlin had to be dumped within the western boundary
Although there are many similar man-made rubble mounds in Germany and other war-torn cities of Europe, Teufelsberg is unique in that the never completed Nazi military-technical college (Wehrtechnische Fakultät) designed by Albert Speer is buried beneath. The Allies tried using explosives to demolish the school, but it was so sturdy that covering it with debris turned out to be easier. The disposal was planned for 12,000,000 m3.
Teufelsberg has been a location for several recent movies and television programmes, such as The Gamblers, Covert Affairs (2nd-season episode titled “Uberlin”) and We Are the Night in which the finale takes place on Teufelsberg.