Teufelsberg
Workshop #4

Today the partly abandoned installation at Teufelsberg is open to the public. In total 22 students, aged 14 to 15, were present that day. They were accompanied by Philip Bobke, an English and history teacher from Rüttli Schule. The class has already participated in the previous workshop at the Allied Museum. The workshop was led by documentary photographer Max Ernst Stockburger and his assistant Sarah Schneider, a photography student from HS Hannover. Stockburger grew up directly next to a U.S. military installation in southern Germany, which has deeply shaped his work. For more than a decade, he has been working on photography projects dealing with the U.S.

Nikon supported this workshop with 10 Nikon Z50 loan cameras, which were handed to the students for the purpose of documenting the historic site.

The first part of the workshop was an hour-long tour led by one of the guides from the team, who manages the site. Dustin Schütte, the local guide, started the tour by asking the students if they have any idea about what the installation had been used for. As many students already had a rough idea about the history of the site, they engaged enthusiastically with the guide. After a brief introduction to the history of the site, Mr. Schutte talked about the daily life on post. He explained the complicated jurisdiction of the site by pointing out why there had been multiple fences around the area. The first fence and the small strip behind this fence was guarded by the German military, whereas the second fence was operated by the American and British forces. He vividly explained that the German military personnel had no access to the actual site, which meant that for the time being on guard, they were forced to stay on the small strip between the first and second fence.

Due to this unusual arrangement, the German forces were heavily reliant on the goodwill of the Allied forces who were operating the actual building. If they wanted to get a hot cup of coffee or tea during the cold winter months, they had to become friends with the American or British guards.

The tour continued at the small museum on site. The private museum hosts hundreds of American and British war memorabilia, including a former British tank, a U.S. military police car, and a U.S. Army jeep. As the students were allowed to actually enter those vehicles, they immediately started posing and making photographs. Many of them were very eager to learn more about how these vehicles ended up here in Germany. The tour guide then explained that they once all belonged to the Allied forces stationed here in Germany.

After a brief overview of the British and American occupation of Berlin, the tour continued to the abandoned facilities of the surveillance site. Mr. Schütte explained in detail the purpose of the individual buildings. The students were especially interested in the facility that was built for destroying the classified material that was no longer needed. Schütte remarked that over the course of a single month, multiple tons of paper were being shredded and burned. After that, the tour continued on the rooftop of the installation. Here the large radar domes were operated to capture information from the east. Many of the former radar domes still exist and are accessible. The students were very impressed by the size of the radar domes and the view over Berlin. Once student said “I’ve never seen Berlin like this, I mean the view is amazing, and I didn’t even know that such an interesting place like this even existed”.

After Schütte finished the tour, Max Ernst Stockburger and Sarah Schneider handed out the loan cameras from Nikon. They assigned the students to walk around the area for 45 minutes and make photos of the things they find especially fascinating. The students paired up in teams of two or three youth and started making photos of the abandoned facilities. Once the assignment was done, the group gathered again and talked about the results. The students said they were especially interested in the graffiti art that can be seen all over the site. One student said that she thinks that it is very important that these kinds of sites are open to everyone and that they can be used and changed. Only this way the history stays alive and youth like them can connect to it. After a short recap of the day, Stockburger and Schneider collected the cameras and handed out the lunch packages. In private conversations, Stockburger and Schneider engaged with the students and answered any further questions the kids had about the history of the location and how this relates to Berlin and Germany.