Iraqi embassy
Party at Saddam’s house
Papers are strewn everywhere, files, important documents, files, letters, photos, names, addresses; mountains of them ripped from folders and filing cabinets and just scattered around. Chairs are overturned, sofas gutted, desks ravaged, walls blackened, shards of glass lie on the floor. Dirty curtains billow in the nonchalant breeze through broken windows.
You’d think a bomb hit the place even before you realize where you are. But this is one Iraqi site which was never bombed – it was simply abandoned.
They must have just left the Iraqi Embassy to East Germany (German Democratic Republic or DDR) with no notice at all. “We’re leaving. Pack your bags and get out!”
They didn’t even bother to clear their desks. More than 20 years later the telephones, rusty typewriters and telex machines were still sitting on desks, along with manuals and lists of phone numbers. (In June, 2010, there was still even toilet paper on a roll beside the smashed up cistern!)
Most of what they left behind in January 1991 was still there. All the good stuff was gone of course; I was looking for a picture of Saddam Hussein. Any medals, busts or trinkets were long pilfered but there was still more than enough to hold the attention.
A receipt from April 28th, 1970 for 1.070,66 East German Mark made out to Herr Dr. Hl Hussani, whoever the hell he was, and letters addressed to Mr. Issam Salman Al Rawi from the Iraqi embassy in London. There were also manuscripts on the Iran-Iraq war, and plenty of pictures of missile launchers in action, smiling Iraqi soldiers and wartime propaganda.
Saddam himself was there too! Smiling beautifully and radiating with glory on the cover of a brochure soiled by decades of Berlin winters and the passing of time. Time hasn’t been kind to him either, I’m afraid.
I’d hopped over the half-hearted barbed-wire effort on the front gate and made my way in through the cellar. As is becoming customary, I’d no torch with me (I finally bought batteries the Sunday before at Mauerpark) so I was relying on my camera infrared to light the dark rooms. It didn’t light much. I stumbled over debris, banged into overturned furniture and crunched on broken glass as I groped my way around in the darkness. I pushed open doors, peered around corners in the dark, half expecting a decayed corpse to suddenly roll out in front of me.
My heart was in my mouth. It nearly shot out of my mouth when I heard voices upstairs as I was rooting through some files. Who the hell was that?! I waited and listened. They spoke again. A laugh. Then I knew it wasn’t the Polizei. Or Saddam’s henchmen protecting deep dark secrets. I continued rooting.
Most of the letters were in Arabic, so I’d no idea what plots they were divulging, what secrets they were sharing, whose ideas they were betraying. I should have paid more attention during Arabic classes. I continued searching.
The 5,000 square meter site belongs to Germany but the Republic of Iraq has ‘perpetual and exclusive rights’ (per embassy etiquette) after being granted same by the now defunct DDR government.
The Iraqis have apparently bigger fish to fry and look set to keep ignoring it from their plush all-Germany embassy in Zehlendorf.
“No comment,” from an Iraqi spokesman.
Meanwhile, someone in the Berlin city planning authority: “It’s a matter for Iraq; there’s nothing we can do about it.”
The abandoned Iraqi embassy has deteriorated drastically over the years as the parties, vandals and trophy hunters have taken their toll. The pictures you see here are from that first visit in 2010, but check the photos in the galleries below to see how it looks now. At least it still enjoys diplomatic immunity, according to the sign outside.
The building was built in 1974 when Iraq enjoyed good relations with the DDR. It had been the first non-socialist state to recognize East Germany as a country in 1969. Saddam Hussein even invited top dog Erich Honecker to Baghdad in 1980, probably to discuss arms deals.
The East German National People’s Army helped Iraqi preparations for chemical warfare, with Der Spiegel reporting in 1990 that four officers from the ‘Chemical Services’ of the NVA led a project until the early 1980s to develop chemical, atomic and biological weapons at a facility near Baghdad. George W. Buch must have read that particular article, or at least had it read to him.
Saddam Hussein’s policy included hits on political opponents abroad. Apparently the East Germans were happy for Iraqis to use East Berlin as a base for operations in West Berlin, and embassy staff could pass through Checkpoint Charlie as and when they pleased. Two were arrested in West Berlin following a tip-off on August 1st, 1980 as they were receiving a suitcase full of explosives.
They turned out to be the embassy secretary Khalid Jaber and the head of Iraqi intelligence in East Berlin, Hay Ali Mahmood. They were accused of a plot to bomb a congress of Kurdish students in West Berlin, in Wedding, just up the road from me. The tip-off apparently came from the Syrian Intelligence Service to the West German Bundesnachrichtendienst intelligence service (BND). .
Reports of large amounts of weapons and explosives at the Iraqi embassy in Berlin were confirmed by the DDR Interior Ministry in September 1990 when it was placed under watch. Iraq was already a month into the first Gulf War after invading Kuwait, and then German reunification took place in October. (Unconnected events.)
The new all-German government, no doubt on its best behavior and keen to curry favor across the Atlantic, ordered staff out of the embassy in January 1991 while the first Gulf War was coming to an end. It’s been abandoned ever since, stuck in a bureaucratic quagmire of its own making.
Live by bureaucracy, die by bureaucracy.
LOCATION AND ACCESS (HOW TO FIND GUIDE)
What: Former Iraqi Embassy to East Germany, abandoned in 1991 and still enjoying diplomatic immunity at its best after all these years.
Where: Tschaikowskistraße 51, Berlin 13156, Germany.
How to get there: The M1 tram goes to Tschaikowskistraße, or the 155 bus to Homeyerstraße. Better yet, your bicycle will get you anywhere. Here’s a map so you can figure out where to go. It ain’t far!
Getting in: You need to be flexible, the situation changes all the time. Last week it was possible to enter from the back by hopping over the gate to the neighboring patch of land beside the Panke and then walking along the stream (be careful you don’t fall into it!) to the part where the fence was trampled down. Then the very next day the fence was repaired and it took a bit more climbing. Yesterday the front door to the embassy had a hole in it inviting people in. There's also a window open to the side. It's easy enough to hop over the front gate.
When to go: Daytime is best so you can see what the hell you’re looking at.
Difficulty rating: 4/10 This has been downgraded from 7/10. You need to be on the lookout for police and nosy neighbors. Germans have an uncontrollable urge to ring people in authority when they suspect someone might be breaking the law, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with them. “Das ist verboten, verdammte Scheiße. Ich muß dringend die Polizei anrufen!”
Who to bring: Like-minded explorers, fugitives from the law.
What to bring: Camera. Tripod if you want to be fancy about it. A few beers to sip on the roof. And a torch. Bring a torch for Jaysus’ sake!
Dangers: There’s a homeless man living at the embassy and he’s not dangerous at all, but you should leave him alone and not disturb him because, well, it’s his home now and you wouldn’t like strangers coming in and rooting around YOUR home. He said he sleeps very well there despite the intruders, and that people keep stealing his alarm clocks, the only thing he has to steal, evidently because they think they’re leftover Iraqi alarm clocks. Folks, they’re not leftover Iraqi alarm clocks. There is literally nothing related to Iraq left in the building, nothing – everything has been pilfered and taken home by trophy hunters or burned by people who like to burn things.
The Polizei do respond to nosy neighbors’ calls, though evidently they’re powerless to stop the burning. My first attempt to gain entrance was aborted when a Polizei Wagon parked outside the place actually reversed to see what was going on. They were there again last week. There’s evidently no crime in Berlin – the Polizei are always itching for something to do. Use your discretion or they’ll be down on you like a scud missile.
Filed 18/6/2010 | Updated 5/4/2023