BERLIN (AFP).- Perched atop a wooded Berlin hill, an abandoned Cold War listening post where NATO once eavesdropped on their communist foes is a reminder of Germany's tumultuous past.
Today tourists flock to the conspicuous historical relic, known as Teufelsberg, or Devil's Mountain, complete with its three white radar domes resembling giant golf balls.
But 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall -- the ultimate Cold War icon, but which has now largely vanished -- debate is underway over whether the ex-field station should be preserved as a memorial.
"The place has something mysterious about it and its history fascinates," said Chris MacLarren, who worked at the site for the US Army between 1973 and 1975.
Every Sunday he returns as a tour guide to the now derelict and graffiti-covered buildings, which were abandoned a year after the Wall came down in 1989.
In the early years, squatters inhabited the deserted site and DJs played at all-night dance parties.
These days, thousands visit for a more atmospheric reminder of Berlin's 28-year history as a divided city than they'll find at Checkpoint Charlie, the famous East-West border crossing that is now cluttered with fast-food stalls and souvenir vendors.
The past comes in layers at Teufelsberg -- literally. The hill itself was created out of some 26 million cubic metres of rubble left from the World War II bombing of Berlin, a mound rising 115 metres (377 feet) above the Grunewald forest.
Before that, the site had been chosen by Adolf Hitler in 1937 as the location of a future university town which, along with the city's Olympic stadium, would have marked the western entrance to "Germania", his imagined, grandiose capital of the "Thousand Year Reich".
Hear Brezhnev clean his teeth
Every year about 10,000 people visit the Teufelsberg listening post, which was built in 1963 by the US and Britain to eavesdrop on East Germany and areas beyond.
Most tourists are from the former West Germany but many others come from abroad, said MacLarren, whose guided tour reveals fascinating snippets of Cold War era signals intelligence.
"We used to say that you could hear (Soviet leader Leonid) Brezhnev cleaning his teeth," he chuckled, describing his work back then as "tedious and boring" but "essential" for Western security.
"It was like assembling a puzzle, so you had to like puzzles," he said, as he led tourists through the site.
Visitors can climb hundreds of steps in the main tower to get a magnificent 360-degree view of the historic landscape, with central Berlin to the east and the town of Potsdam to the southwest.
In 1996, real estate investors proposed turning the place into a five-star hotel and loft apartments, but they ran into financial trouble and today the only traces of the project are an unwanted showroom flat.
The complex fell into disrepair and in 2006 the area was classified as a nature reserve, complicating any possible future building plans.
Three years ago, the investment group which still owns Teufelsberg took on a manager to supervise the site and run paid guided tours.
In parallel, a group has been set up to look into Teufelsberg becoming a memorial, as well as a venue for artistic and cultural events.
So far, however, there has been no agreement about what to do with it.
Another possible scenario is for the city of Berlin to buy the site -- a move which, according to media reports, has the support of the incoming mayor Michael Mueller, even if the asking price could prove a challenge for the indebted city.
Teufelsberg may no longer be secret, but its future remains a mystery.
A source within the investor group said an answer may come in mid-2015, but, in keeping with the listening post's old ways, the source refused to divulge anything else.
© 1994-2014 Agence France-Presse
