Description
It was one of the most spectacular espionage operations of the Cold War: British and American intelligence services dug a tunnel from West Berlin that extended around 330 meters into East Germany. From there, they were able to eavesdrop on hundreds of thousands of telephone conversations between Soviet military personnel from May 1955 until the operation was exposed in April 1956.This book reconstructs the dramatic events and adds a missing piece of the puzzle that lay undiscovered for decades in the archives of the Verein Berliner Unterwelten: a comprehensive document compiled for GDR Interior Minister Karl Maron contains previously unknown photos and reveals details about how the spy tunnel worked and how the Soviets tracked it down. Dietmar Arnold, geboren 1964 in Berlin, studierte Stadt- und Regionalplanung an der Technischen Universität Berlin und schrieb seine Diplomarbeit über die Beelitzer Heilstätten. Seit 1991 forscht und publiziert er intensiv über den Berliner Untergrund und gründete 1997 den Berliner Unterwelten e. V. Er wurde mit dem Landesverdienstorden von Berlin (2018) und dem Bundesverdienstkreuz (2025) ausgezeichnet.Dietmar Arnold, born in Berlin in 1964, studied Uurban and Rregional Pplanning at the Technical University of Berlin and wrote his thesis on the Beelitz SanatoriaBeelitz sanatoriums. Since 1991, he has been conducting intensive research and publishing on Berlin's underground, and in 1997 he founded Berliner Unterwelten e. V. He was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of Berlin (2018) and the Federal Cross of Merit (2025). Helmut Müller-Enbergs, Prof. Dr. phil., geboren 1960 in Haltern am See, ist außerordentlicher Professor am Center for Cold War Studies an der University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Gastwissenschaftler am Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut der FU Berlin und Senior Fellow an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Sein Forschungsschwerpunkt ist die Geschichte der Nachrichtendienste.Helmut Müller-Enbergs, Prof. Dr. phil., born in Haltern am See in 1960, is an associate professor at the Center for Cold War Studies at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, a visiting scholar at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute at the Free University of Berlin, and a senior fellow at Ruhr University Bochum. His research focuses on the history of intelligence services. Berliner Unterwelten e.V. erforscht und dokumentiert seit 1997 die geschichtlichen Zusammenhänge des Berliner Untergrundes. Die denkmalgeschützten Orte werden im Rahmen von Touren für die Öffentlichkeit zugänglich gemacht.Berliner Unterwelten e.V. has been researching and documenting the historical connections of Berlin's underground since 1997. The protected heritage sites are made accessible to visitors through guided tours.
