Rudow

Rudow is a residential and light industrial district on the outskirts of Berlin. It is bordered on the east by the Teltow Canal, which runs alongside the Berlin Wall, separating it from the neighbourhood of Johannisthal which lies on the other side of the border. It contains a border crossing at Waltersdorfer Chausee, used for West German citizens who want to access the Schoenefeld Airport in East Germany.

Rudow is somewhat isolated and sparsely populated. Light manufacturing factories dot the landscape in between stretches of undeveloped land, overgrown with weeds. Nothing much happens out there and information is not easy to find. The residents like it that way; they keep to themselves, shut their doors and stay home at night. Rudow is not overly prestigious. The people are mainly working class, commuting between the housing estates and their jobs at the factories.

## Sites

### Abandoned Warehouse

* Stealth 3

One of the many abandoned warehouses in the factory district of Rudow. It sits alone in an overgrown field, dark and desolate, with no visible signage indicating its reason or purpose. It is located away from the main roads, making it hard to stumble across if not on purpose.

The dirt road that leads up to the warehouse is marked by vehicle tracks, some of them fresh. Once inside, the appearance is thoroughly unimpressive. The warehouse floor is rectangular in shape, made from cement. Dirt and various old construction equipment had been left there piled up in corners gathering dust.

#### Tunnel-Rudow - Entrance

* Remove after building. This leads to the grid space, East Berlin - Treptow.

You discover a trap door in this warehouse building. Upon opening it, you come down to a large basement area, seven metres (23 ft) deep and extending as far as the eye can see. All around you, the tunnel is lined with cast iron lining plates. There is no light here

### U-bahnhof Rudow

This station is relatively new—only two years old—and built with bright orange walls and fluorescent lighting. It is the last stop for the U-bahn line and there are storage sidings built in its south end to store train carriages.

### Waltersdorfer Chausee

This road crossing leads from Rudow to the Schoenefeld Airport in Brandenburg, just outside of Berlin's city limits. The East German airline Interflug operates out of Schoenefeld. As their own citizens are not permitted to leave the country, the East German airline caters to citizens of the West, providing scheduled and chartered flights to holiday destinations. Interflug's one main advantage is that it is extremely cheap—it carried around one million passengers annually when at the peak of its popularity.

Passengers can cross by private car or by taking the dedicated shuttle bus. The crossing is demarcated by white cement road blocks with guard booths on either side. A guard tower is situated on no-man's-land—a looming, white, monolithic rectangle watching over the crossing. The cars have to cross about 20 metres to get to the other side of the border.

#### Schoenefeld Airport

The terminal building is box-shaped and flat, fronted by grey-tinted glass pane windows—it does the job and is not exceptionally attractive. There are two main terminals A and B and one secondary terminal C. The West German citizens will be processed in a separate terminal from the East Germans taking domestic flights. The airline and airport is staffed entirely by East Germans. Clad in their starched, grey uniforms, they are not permitted to interact with Westerners except in a formal capacity. To work here, they had to undergo extensive security checks by the Stasi.

Outside, Interflug's tin-coloured jets can be seen landing and taking off. Also using this airport are airlines from Communist bloc countries, such as Aeroflot. The boarding hall is stark and bare and lit by bright fluorescent lights. Usually one may come across Western tourists getting ready for their trip to Greece or Ibiza, waiting for their boarding call with their suitcases and kids in tow.