The View from Teufelsberg
THE VIEW FROM TEUFELSBERG is, like all others, relative to the viewer's standpoint; Devil's Mountain is man-made from the debris that was Berlin before 1945.
Standing here, completely alone, I sense another presence. Explicable perhaps by the suggestions of place-name, history, or other conditioning factors, it is in any case Evil. The view from Teufelsberg is just this: tainted, conditioned. The atmosphere here is charged and heavy; a spark of the imagination could be either dangerous or illuminating for those lingering after dark.
The sun sets, twilight finally disappears. I take my photograph and walk back through the dark forest to catch the 69 near S-Bahnhof Grunewald; my dread follows me closely. I don't turn around until I reach the bus, and then only from the relative familiarity of the top-deck do I look back at the shining tower, the military base, which marks the distant hill-top. From here I begin to consider whether my sense of fear at Teufelsberg is due to perception [from without to within] or projection [from within to without.]
As the bus nears Olivaerplatz familiarity is reinforced enough for me to decide in favour of perception: the apprehension of something very concrete at the site of Teufelsberg.
