Before World War II, Berlin was a largely flat city. But after the war, the city was littered with an estimated 55 million cubic meters of rubble (Diefendorf 15). Even after that had been picked through, there was still a great deal to be distributed. Wartime bunkers, canals, and ditches were gradually filled, but even was not enough (Dark Worlds Tour). The rubble was eventually piled up into artificial hills throughout the city – as a result, modern Berlin has a number of changes in elevation that make traversing the city a very different experience for residents and visitors today (Anderson 75). Other cities would also end up creating Trümmerberge – “rubble hills” – but Berlin has more, as it had by far the largest volume of rubble.
Teufelsberg, as seen from the Reichstag, with the Siegesäule in the foreground.
The largest of Berlin’s rubble hills – standing at 115 meters tall – is Teufelsberg, the Devil’s Mountain. Located in the Grunewald in Berlin’s Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district, the Devil’s Mountain accounts for approximately 25 million cubic meters of the rubble. “Building” the hill was a twenty-year process that began in 1946 and ended in 1966 (Anderson 75). Because of its height, a listening post was constructed at its peak during the Cold War, for the use of the United States and its allies (Ewers).
Students climbing the top third of Teufelsberg.
When considering the prewar ambitions of the Nazis, Teufelsberg is perhaps the most powerful symbol of their failure. Its construction marks the culmination of their defeat. It also represents the use of laborers with seemingly endless materials, though it reverses the grandeur of the Nazi design (for more information on this, see Berlin in Ruins on this site or consult the Bibliography page). Visitors to Berlin in this period who saw the rubble remarked that it also inspired the sense of awe and fear (Diefendorf 4) that had been the intent of the would-be conquerors.
Broken bricks still joined by mortar.
Now it seems to serve more as a means to bury the memory of Hitler and Speer’s vision. Beneath Teufelsberg lies the remnants of a Nazi military academy. Construction began in 1937, though efforts to build it were abandoned as the war escalated. Had Speer’s designs been enacted, the academy would have been a critical part of Germania, the seat of National Socialism’s new world order. Instead it was filled with and buried in rubble, after an attempt by British forces to demolish it after the war failed (Ewers).
Today, the site is a park. It is a far cry from the prewar construction site or the bustle of a postwar dumping ground. After a hike through the Grunewald – the hill is now sprinkled with trees, even in places where the rubble is still exposed by erosion – visitors to Teufelsberg can relax, visit the listening station, or take in the sights of Berlin from the edge of the city.