Archaeology of the Teufelsberg: Exploring Western Electronic Intelligence Gathering in Cold War Berlin - Paperback

by Wayne D. Cocroft (Author), John Schofield (Author)

For over 50 years, the white radomes of the Teufelsberg have been one of Berlin's most prominent landmarks. For half of this time the city lay over 100 miles behind an 'Iron Curtain' that divided East from West, and was surrounded by communist East Germany and the densest concentration of Warsaw Pact military forces in Europe. From the vantage point high on the Teufelsberg, British and American personnel constantly monitored the electronic emissions from the surrounding military forces, as well as high-level political intelligence. Today, the Teufelsberg stands as a contemporary and spectacular ruin, representing a significant relic of a lost cyber space of Cold War electronic emissions and espionage. Based on archaeological fieldwork and recently declassified documents, this book presents a new history of the Teufelsberg and other Western intelligence gathering sites in Berlin. At a time when intelligence gathering is once more under close scrutiny, when questions are being asked about the intelligence relationship between the United States and Russia, and amidst wider debate about the US's National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence programmes, sites like the Teufelsberg raise questions that appear both important and timely.

Author Biography

Wayne D Cocroft is an archaeologist and manager of Historic England's Historic Places Investigation Team East based in Cambridge. For over 25 years he has specialised in the investigation and assessment of former military sites, including explosives factories and Cold War research and development establishments. His published works include Dangerous Energy: the archaeology of gunpowder and military explosives manufacture, and he has also co-authored Cold War: building for nuclear confrontation 1946-1989, War Art murals and graffiti - military life, power and subversion. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists.

John Schofield was, until recently, Head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, where he is also Director of Studies in Cultural Heritage Management, having previously worked for English Heritage. John is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists and a Docent in Cultural Heritage, Landscape and Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Turku (Finland). He is also Senior Research Fellow at Flinders University, Adelaide, and an Adjunct Professor at Griffith University, both in Australia. He has published extensively in the fields of cultural heritage, archaeology of the recent and contemporary pasts, and the archaeology of conflict. As a child, John lived in Berlin (1971-1973) where his father was Officer Commanding 26 Signals Unit, based both at RAF Gatow and at the Teufelsberg.