Listening station

After Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894) succeeded in 1886 as the first to generate electromagnetic waves in the ultra-short wave range, and Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937) around 1900 was able to increase the range of his radio transmissions to hundreds of kilometers, thus radiotelegraphy technology was used in the First World War (1914–1918), for example: within the German Imperial Army, the Imperial Russian Army (with fatal consequences in the Battle of Tannenberg due to intercepted Russian radiogram traffic by Germany and Austria),[1] and in aeronautical radio communication.

Conversely, France was already using the Eiffel Tower, which was closed to the public during the first year of the War, as a radio listening station to intercept wireless telegraphy (see image).

After 1989, a much larger listening complex was planned on the Brocken summit, which was no longer implemented due to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the peaceful revolution in the German Democratic Republic.

During the German reunification process in 1989 and 1990, the facility's electronic equipment was removed and the amassed classified information archives destroyed as it had become redundant with the end of the Cold War.

In 1991 the US and British withdrew from Teufelsberg, and the Senate of Berlin sold the 4.7-hectare (12-acre) area of the listening station for 5.2 million Deutsch Mark to a private investor consortium.

In England, RAF Menwith Hill should be mentioned,[6] including BBC Monitoring at Crowsley Park and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham.