​What We Prepare(d) For

​An Insider’s Walk Through the Iron Curtain

​This session is part of the Public Vitality Camp 2026 and is convened by Alliierte in Berlin e.V. in cooperation with nextlearning e.V.. Alliierte in Berlin e.V.’s permanent museum exhibition on Teufelsberg will be a foundation for this shared experience.

​Teufelsberg holds several histories within one site: Berlin’s wartime rubble covers the unfinished remains of a Nazi military academy, while a Cold War listening station rises above it. Its structures preserve the experiences of the Western occupying forces and the West German civilian employees who worked here.

​More than 30 years after the station closed, Europe is again debating preparedness, deterrence, surveillance and security. This walk does not treat the present as a replay of the Cold War. Instead, it brings situated memory into dialogue with current questions, allowing history to complicate and expand how we understand the choices being made today.

​What can Teufelsberg’s history help us notice about present-day preparedness – and what becomes visible when we resist simply extrapolating from the past?

​Starting from the museum exhibition, we walk through listening towers, former canteens, barriers and other traces of military life. In dialogue with Matthias, we connect the material site and lived experience with contemporary questions about borders, intelligence, technology and geopolitical tension.

​Together, we identify differences, continuities and unresolved tensions. The aim is not to extract simple lessons, but to sharpen our judgement about what preparedness protects, what it may place at risk and what forms of civic life it produces.

​Welcome perspectives

​The session will be held in English, with some contributions potentially delivered in German and translated. Contributions are welcome in both languages. We particularly invite perspectives from:

• ​history, journalism, museums and public memory

• ​former and current civilian, security and military actors

• ​international relations, peacebuilding and transatlantic cooperation

• ​AI, surveillance and data governance

• ​public administration and democratic institutions

• ​community organisations and neighbourhood initiatives

​No prior knowledge of Teufelsberg or Alliierte in Berlin e. V. is required. Particularly valuable are experiences of how societies remember conflict, interpret emerging threats and preserve democratic judgement under pressure.

​Important notes

​The Camp format is a volunteer-developed prototype and intentionally simple in how it is organised. Please bring your own food and drinks, and feel free to bring something to share.

​Please register as well for the walk up and walk down from S Heerstraße to Teufelsberg of this day. So you can participate in the held structure of the camp, we can tune in together and cross pollinate across the sessions.

​The Public Vitality Camp is a shared learning space for people already working on societal, institutional, technological and ecological challenges. Across the sessions, we work on concrete questions and tensions and explore what enables people, institutions and communities to remain capable of acting under increasingly difficult conditions – and how decisions made today expand or constrain future possibilities.

​Here you can discover further sessions and register or apply to participate.