Military

Examples of abandoned or forgotten sites and buildings in Berlin or around it that were associated with military use. There were lots of them.

Kraftwerk Vogelsang

Kraftwerk Vogelsang

Kraftwerk Vogelsang is a powerless power plant. People gave their lives building it and fighting over it. Now that they’re gone, nobody wants it at all.

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Wünsdorf

Wünsdorf

Wünsdorf was the Soviet military forces’ HQ in Germany, Little Moscow, the Forbidden City. The Nazis used it before that for their underground army HQ.

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Teufelsberg Tale

Teufelsberg Tale

Lew McDaniel of West Virginia worked as a linguist at Teufelsberg, Field Station Berlin, from 1968-71. He tells Abandoned Berlin of life at the spy station.

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Niederlehme TSL 44

Niederlehme TSL 44

Niederlehme’s Treib- und Schmierstofflager 44, aka TSL 44, was a former oil and fuel storage facility used by Nazi Germany, then East Germany’s armed forces.

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Vogelsang

Vogelsang

Vogelsang still clings to its nuclear secrets. One sneaky deployment of bad weapons was so damned secret it was even kept from the Soviet soldiers involved.

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Tempelhof

Tempelhof

West Berlin’s lifeline during the Soviet Blockade, Tempelhof Airport has since become the city’s biggest park. Berliners will fight to keep it that way.

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Flugplatz Schönwalde

Flugplatz Schönwalde

Germany’s Luftwaffe used Flugplatz Schönwalde for the war. The Soviets took over afterward and left their traces after abandoning the airfield in 1992.

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Teufelsberg

Teufelsberg

The abandoned NSA Field Station from the frontline of the Cold War, used to spy on Soviet-controlled East Germany on the other side of the Berlin Wall.

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Flugplatz Brand

Flugplatz Brand

Flugplatz Brand was strategically important for the Soviet Air Force. Thankfully its battalions of flying fighters remained on ice for the duration of the Cold War.

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Stasi Hotel

Stasi Hotel

East Germany checked out right before the Stasi could check in. Their hotel was never completed. Now it’s just a great hulking ruin between the trees.

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Jüterbog

Jüterbog

Jüterbog and its military camps played host to soldiers’ charades, men playing with guns, for around 130 years before the last ones left in 1994.

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Flugplatz Oranienburg

Flugplatz Oranienburg

Flugplatz Oranienburg served in the summer of 1944 as a test center for the legendary Horten Ho IX, the world’s first “stealth” bomber.

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Tegel Airport

Tegel Airport

Tegel Airport (TXL), was formerly Germany’s fourth busiest airport with more than 24 million passengers in 2019. Abandoned Nov. 8, 2020.

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Stasi spy station

Stasi spy station

The Stasi spy station Quelle 1 in Rhinow tapped fiber cable going from West Berlin 250km across the DDR to enemy state West Germany. Sneaky.

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Flugplatz Johannisthal

Flugplatz Johannisthal

One of the world’s first motor airfields when it opened in 1909. People used to flock to Flugplatz Johannisthal to see marvelous metal machines with wings actually fly.

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