If These Coloured Walls Could Talk

Home , East Berlin, Listening station, Reichstag building, Spandau Citadel, Teufelsberg

Sun Herald, Sydney 17 Aug 2014, by Ben Groundwater

Travel, page 20 - 1,805.00 cm² Capital City Daily - circulation 257,630 (------S)

Berlin’s past is everywhere, and its people never forget, writes Ben Groundwater.

here’s still a spy in the old wall. Twenty-five years since a listening station is in, the only way to US listening station. peaceful revolution reunited see Teufelsberg is by taking this tour, Christopher McLarren T Germany.If ever there was a good which is not only a great way to looks every bit the spook time to explore the old Berlin, it is explore the facility,but a chance to today with his cloth flat cap, long this year. listen to tales of the Cold War from beige trenchcoat and black leather Teufelsberg certainly retains its one of its participants. gloves. He paces the area outside the place in Berlin’s Cold War story, “Life was good for US soldiers in gutted, graffiti-covered spy base in although it doesn’t look quite as West Berlin, telling stories from the impressive today as it must have West Berlin,” McLarren recalls. “We not-so-distant past. during its heyday at the centre of the had the run of the city.We could “We had to know the Soviets as West’s radio operations. cross into East Berlin and exchange well as we knew ourselves,” he Once scheduled to be destroyed to money on the black market and go on recalls. “We had to know their codes make way for an apartment huge shopping sprees – fine china, and their call signs. We had to know development, Teufelsberg was Zeiss camera lenses ... we could the people we were listening to.” stripped and gutted, but when those afford it all over there.” McLarren spent three years here building plans were scrapped, the Modern-day Berlin is just as ripe at Teufelsberg working as a radio field station was left to decay. for exploration. It’s a network of analyst at the height of the Cold War. It lives on. There’s always been an historic buildings – the famous ones, On a hill near a forest on the such as the Reichstag and those on outskirts of Berlin, this was a joint interest in history in Berlin, and the Museum Island – and then the not- US and British field station, a place citizens of the western side of the so-famous ones, buildings from Cold where radio conversations from city,in particular,are loath to let a War times that have been around the Eastern Bloc were site such as Teufelsberg completely abandoned, but not forgotten. scanned, recorded and carefully disappear.That’s why the radio One of the most incredible of those studied. domes, huge spheres covered in is Tempelhof. Once one of the largest It was said you could hear all the white cloth, have been restored to buildings in the world, this Nazi-era way to Moscow from these big white complete the city’s skyline. airport terminal now sits empty in domes whose now-tattered The stories McLarren tells today central Berlin in a huge open field, a coverings flap in the cold breeze. as he leads us through the complex patch of grass criss-crossed by deep McLarren has been running tours are straight out of a spy novel – tales gashes of tarmac. of his old workplace for a few years of agents and double-agents, of Tempelhof was built as a show of now – although 2014 is bound to be clandestine meetings, dead-drops strength by the Nazis in the 1920s his busiest. and midnight runners. and ’30s, and during the Cold War There will be an increased interest We take a full tour of the facility, was the lifeline to West Berlin. All in Teufelsberg this year,and in all of from the old armoury to the rooms food rations or supplies brought in by Berlin’s Cold War-era relics, because where McLarren and his colleagues the West had to pass through here. on November 9, Berliners of the east would analyse the radio intercepts, The famous “candy bombers” took and west will celebrate the 25th to the inside of those huge white off from here. For West Berliners, anniversary of the fall of the Berlin domes, now covered in graffiti. Wall. Teufelsberg retains an important this airport was a symbol of freedom Twenty-five years since a botched place in the German capital’s psyche. and hope. press conference emboldened first a More than 60 per cent of the After the fall of the wall, few,and then thousands, and then an people who take the tour here, Tempelhof became Berlin’s unstoppable wave of East Berliners McLarren says, are Berliners. “They commercial hub, only to be to cross and then destroy the hated love to explore their own city.” abandoned in 2008 due to its short Given the state of disrepair the old runways and inner-city location. Sun Herald, Sydney 17 Aug 2014, by Ben Groundwater

Travel, page 20 - 1,805.00 cm² Capital City Daily - circulation 257,630 (------S)

Now,the huge terminal stands of the clients raises his hand. “To side by huge murals on buildings, cold in the wind, an imposing block keep the capitalists out?” Sebastian of Nazi-era stone begging to be historic photos of East Germans smiles. “That’s right – to keep the attempting to cross the wall. explored. And that can be done, with capitalists out.” the recent introduction of English- That’s the new Berlin for you – free He sweeps his hand past a long and happy,but shadowed by the past. language tours. Today I’m exploring expanse of graffiti-covered concrete with Stefan, an employee at We jump back on the bikes and wall. “Andthis is where they did it.” head down to another park on Tempelhof with a serious passion for We’re standing in the Mauer Park, this impressive building. Bernauer Strasse, another part of just near where the first breach of the Death Strip that has been turned It’s eerie as we step inside the the wall famously took place. hollow old terminal, like being on the into a memorial. This long, narrow patch of This is the only segment of the wall set of a zombie movie. grassland in northern Berlin is Our footsteps echo off the stone with a preserved section of no-man’s- similar in size and shape to many land in the middle; cracks in the walls as we walk through the old dotted across the city–alegacy, departure lounges, heading for the concrete wall allow visitors to peer Sebastian explains, of the wall. through and get a feel for the task main check-in area, a huge hall with “Any parks you see like this,” he sky-high ceilings and marble floors. says,” was probably once part of the that faced those with the will to “Do you know,” Stefan says, gazing Death Strip, the no-man’s-land escape the east. at the hall from a balcony above, between the two sections of the “This area wasn’t a nice place to “that there’s a military planning Berlin Wall. The city decided to keep live,” Sebastian explains. “The room right below the check-in area? it all as open space.” politically correct East Germans, the Right at people’s feet, there were Part of the wall has been left ones the government liked, were put Nazis and then Americans planning standing in the Mauer Park, and it in houses on the outskirts of the city. for war.Just below their feet!” makes an excellent introduction for The people with more ‘alternative’ On the very top level of the our Berlin on Bike tour,a three-hour views had to live near the wall. It terminal there’s a gym and bowling cycling trip tracing the path and created a spirit of rebellion, a spirit alley once used by American history of the old wall. of protest, that lives on in Berlin.” soldiers. Down the stairs, past We began just nearby in For evidence of that spirit, take a ground level and deeper,lie the Prenzlauer Berg, a suburb that was look today at almost any wall or military facilities, the planning building in the city.It will be covered part of the old East Berlin, and where rooms and living quarters. in street art or graffiti, which may small remnants of the wall can still Even more interesting are the seem like mindless vandalism at first be found. “The wall will always be bunkers and air-raid shelters deep sight, but has a history dating to Cold there,” Sebastian says. below the airport grounds. War times. “Look on the pavement, you’ll see Stefan walks me down to this area On an Alternative Berlin walking a metal line that shows you where it and there’s a strange, perceptible tour through some of the grittier, once was. Look along its old route shift in energy as we enter the dark trendier parts of the city such as and you’ll find memorials and rooms where the Nazis would once Kreuzberg and Neukolln, our guide, murals. The people of Berlin will hide. It’s spooky down here – far Mark, explains that early West never forget it.” spookier than the empty departure Berliners with a few cans of paint In Prenzlauer Berg, which is now a halls. We’ll go even further and something to say had the perfect beautiful suburb full of restaurants, underground, too, to old storerooms canvas to voice their concerns. cafes and perfectly restored whose thick concrete walls are still What began with a few scrawls of apartment blocks, some of the first marked black by old fires. protest on the west side of the wall attempts were made to cross the It’s a relief to get back up to morphed into a riot of colour over the wall. East Berliners would leap from ground level and take in Tempelhof Cold War years, a mix of artistic buildings that backed onto the Death from the outside – huge, imposing expression and political activism Strip – eventually those buildings and silent. splashed across the most visible were destroyed, leaving what is now Later,Sebastian, our guide for the symbol of the communist east. a bright, open space down by day,asks: “Do you know why the East That tradition never disappeared, Bernauer Strasse. Germans built the Berlin Wall?” One and today Berlin’s apartment It’s an incongruous sight today to buildings and warehouses are still see families playing in the grass of awash with murals, slogans and tags. the old Death Strip, flanked on each Even Teufelsberg, the old listening Sun Herald, Sydney 17 Aug 2014, by Ben Groundwater

Travel, page 20 - 1,805.00 cm² Capital City Daily - circulation 257,630 (------S)

station, hasn’t been spared, its gutted walls covered in the works of local artists forever linked to the FIVE past. The Cold War is over.The wall has MORE BERLIN come down. But Berlin will never ATTRACTIONS forget.r MAUERPARK FLEA The writer travelled as a guest of MARKET Emirates and Visit Berlin. This Sunday market contains a treasure trove of antiques and Take a look at bric-a-brac, and is always packed with locals and almo› any wall. tourists. It will be covered SCHLOSS CHARLOTTENBURG in ›reet art. The largest palace in Berlin is also the most impressive, with its baroque and rococo architecture, formal gardens, theatre and pavilion. KAISER WILHELM CHURCH If ever a church could sum up a city, it’s this one, a mixture of old and new, a church spire partly destroyed in World War II, and a modern belfry and foyer that act as the church’s current place of worship. REICHSTAG BUILDING One experience that appears on most to-do lists for visitors to Berlin is climbing the dome of the Reichstag building, where German parliament meets. SPANDAU CITADEL A visit to this fortress not only means you get to check out a well-preserved Renaissance- era military structure, but you also get to explore Spandau, a suburb that feels a world away from the bustle of central Berlin. Sun Herald, Sydney 17 Aug 2014, by Ben Groundwater

Travel, page 20 - 1,805.00 cm² Capital City Daily - circulation 257,630 (------S)

GETTING THERE distance from Museum Island and Tours of the Tempelhof Airport TRIP NOTES Emirates flies from Sydney to most of inner Berlin’s major terminal cost $19. See Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Munich, attractions. Rooms start from $96 a tempelhoferfreiheit.de. with connections to Berlin. Economy night. See monbijouhotel.com. Berlin on a Bike’s guided Berlin return starts at $2039. Phone Wall tours cost $27, and go for 1300 307 777; see emirates.com. TOURING THERE about three hours. See MORE Christopher McLarren’s tours of the berlinonbike.de. INFORMATION STAYING THERE Teufelsberg listening station go for For free Alternative Berlin walking visitberlin.de The boutique Monbijou Hotel has about 90 minutes, and cost $22. tours, including its subcultures, germany.travel rooms in the suburb of Mitte, walking See visitberlin.de. see alternativeberlin.com.

1HERSA1 D020 Sun Herald, Sydney 17 Aug 2014, by Ben Groundwater

Travel, page 20 - 1,805.00 cm² Capital City Daily - circulation 257,630 (------S)

Copyright Agency licensed copy (www.copyright.com.au) ID 298278715 PAGE 5 of 6 Sun Herald, Sydney 17 Aug 2014, by Ben Groundwater

Travel, page 20 - 1,805.00 cm² Capital City Daily - circulation 257,630 (------S)

Changing face: (Clockwise from above) Bernauer Strasse; art in Mitte, central Berlin ; Kreuzberg art; Mitte art; Teufelsberg; Chris McLarren; the former Tempelhof airport. Photos: Ben Groundwater