19 October 2010
 
The Last Shot


(Abandoned US SIGINT Site at Teuflesberg, British Sector, West Berlin)
 
They whisked me out of Tegel without complication yesterday morning to Munich, and four movies later the AB-330-300 touched down at IAD.
 
Apparently the particulate matter from the plume tops out at FL28, and we cruised directly over it at Flight Level 36, climbing to FL40 as we burned down fuel.

This week brought back a lot of memories for all concerned with the once-divided city.
 
If the ash plume had continued to foul up air traffic, I made contingency plans for things to do if I was trapped in Berlin. My associate and I had concentrated more on things to see and do in the former DDR, which seemed to have more texture than the former West Berlin. But there were some things that I did not want to miss.
 
I looked through my notes on the plane in seat 27 D, or at least I did until the large American woman in 26 D dropped hers back to full recline, leaving me about six inches of space and unable to see anything on the tray table above my lap below.
 
Devil's Hill was on the menu of alternate activities, as was the site of the old Berlin Tunnel the Fort dug to tap the main cables that connected GSFG HQ with the field units in the Soviet sector.
 
The latter was going to be tough, since the Wall had gone up after the tunnel was discovered, but I had rough directions from a cemetery that probably had not moved.
 
Devils Hill would be no problem to find. Apparently it is in private German hands now, and some SIGINT vets want to turn it into a museum. I made the route plans to get there by cab, just in case, but it turned out not to be necessary. It is on my list of things to do when I get back to Berlin, though it might not be there.
 
That would not be through a lack of interest of other old Cold Wariors. My pal Jerry was stationed - from 1975-1977- at Teufelsberg in the British Sector’s Grunewald forest district of West Berlin.
 
The Hill has an interesting role in the history of the Cold War. Berlin is located on the vast sandy plain of north Germany. High places that enhance the ability to intercept line-of-sight communications. As you might imagine, the Fort was anxious to find he best possible place to listen in to activity by the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, and their little brother, the DDR’s National People’s Army.
 
Teufelsburg is pretty forlorn now, but there was a time when the golf-ball geodesic domes monitored the most sensitive collection activity in the city. You can Google-map the place up if you want and get a feel for the terrain.
 
The hill has no ancient history. Albert Speer had designed a technical military institute to be built on the site, and in their wisdom, the occupiers determined that none of those were required in the post-war world. The place was built with such robust construction methods that it was impossible to blow the complex up, so rubble was dumped on top of it to a height significant enough to put up ski-lifts and make it a winter sports venue.
 
In the 1950s, the hunt for the optimal SIGINT site determined that the ski area was the best in the city, and the Spooks quietly moved in.
 
There was a long and honorable history of electronic espionage conducted from the site, which naturally I am not going to address the way I am going to do to the Stasi Headquarters my associate and I toured.
 
After the Wall fell, the National Security Agency determined the facility was an expensive redundancy, and walked away from it after hauling away all the gear. To their dismay, the Stasi did not have that luxury, and that is the most astonishing thing about their former Headquarters.
 
You can imagine the last director of the secret police of the DDR have just walked out of his office. Teuflesberg has been vacuumed of everything that went on there. The site fell into the hands of a series of German developers, and after the initial flurry of construction activity in the capital the enterprises successively went bust.
 
Not everyone is content with that result. SIGINT vets would like to turn the place into a museum, named for the last Army officer shot by the Soviets, Major Arthur “Nick” Nicholson.


(Maj Nick Nicholson, right, and his casket arriving at Dover AFB in 1985,)
 
Major Nicholson was accredited to the staff of the Military Liaison Mission in Potsdam, a relic of the treaty that placed Soviets in Western German and U.S,, British and French observers in the East. It was a big game, most of the time, though sometimes played in deadly earnest. My pal John Guenther was assigned to the mission at Potsdam, as was a Marine general of my acquaintance. Both of them made their military reputations based on the verve with which they pursued their collection opportunities out of Potsdam.
 
Nick was cut out of the same cloth. One bright Sunday morning in 1985 nhe and his driver passed through the check point from he American sector into the DDR  in full uniform as treaty rights specified. His mission was to survey Soviet military activity. He was about to become the last official American casualty of the Cold War.
 
His murder was front-page news for a few tense days in the middle of the Reagan Administration. It was a bright Sunday morning, and he was about to become the last American to die in the Cold War.
 
Nick and his driver Staff Sergeant Jessie Schatz were fully sanctioned under the Peace treaty. The Soviets had tried to unilaterally amend he terms of the Peace with the Berlin Blockade, and later with the Mauer. Still, the awkward arrangement remained in place because it provided both sides with unique collection opportunities in “denied areas.” That did not mean that it was a happy arrangement.
 
Nicholson and Schatz followed a convoy of Soviet tanks returning from target practice. It was typical Military Liaison Mission activity. Nick was probably making notes on the number, type and configuration of the tanks. It is invaluable to have a ombat arms expert look at things.
 
One time in the Balkan war, we ran a little experiment out of the Pentagon. CNN was just beginning, and being unclassified, a lot of senior officials had it on all day in their offices. It drove a lot of perceptions of reality, and it was our contention that a trained observer was better than a fresh correspondent without military experience. The news network was running a near-live feed from the Former Yugoslavia, and featured  images of tanks on the move. The correspondent was flustered, and ominously announced that some sort of military action was imminent.
 
We had managed to get one of the Defense Attaché Officers from Belgrade down to watch the same activity. Our “correspondent" got eyes on target and reported via secure phone that the tanks in question did not have external stores and the only thing they were likely to do was return to garrison.
 
That was the value of the observation mission, and why the Soviets took our people very seriously. The USMLM’s 1985 unit history describes the scene and what happened next:
 
“This facility served the Independent Tank Regiment of 2 Guards Tank Army. Known to be frequently guarded under normal conditions, it had a varied history of occasionally violent reaction. Thus, the tour [i.e., Nicholson and Schatz] entered the area with considerable caution, stopping in the forest to watch and listen at intervals as they did so. SSG Schatz, who had just visited the area a few days prior, pointed out an area which had been recently occupied, but the Soviets had departed it. The tour then approached the sheds, photographed signboards displayed nearby, and positioned the vehicle to permit the tour NCO [Schatz] to pull security while the tour officer [Nicholson] checked for armor.”

Unfortunately, there was a Red Army sentry in the trees and neither Nick nor the Sergeant saw him until just before he opened fire.
 
There was the predictable cover up about the matter. Sergeant Shatz lived to tell about it. The Soviets claimed that challenges were made in German and Russian, and a warning shot was fired.
 
It was all bullshit, of course. The sentry’s first shot was a miss, and the next two struck Nick in the torso as he attempted to make it back to the jeep. Shatz was in the vehicle and emerged to attempt to give first aid, but the Soviet prevented any attempt at gunpoint.
 
The incident went on for the new few hours. Nick lasted an hour, or may have. No one was able to tell, since the Soviet side did not bother to take his pulse. Sergeant Shatz was kept away from him, and Nick had bled out.
 
It was a big deal at the time, and then, as things tended to do in those days, the next big deal in the news cycle diverted attention to the next big thing.
 
It was dangerous work, and Nick paid the highest price for his devotion to duty. The other Spooks want him remembered, and think preserving the unique history of Teufelsberg is a good start.
 
The pragmatic Germans have declared the bankrupt site to be State Forest, though, and I imagine they would just as soon forget about the whole thing.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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