A secret espionage site?
In 1968 a U.S. Army training film had its climactic scenes shot in the villa and neighboring streets. It was released in 1969. Despite the fact that the German Democratic Republic’s media referred to the villa as a secret espionage site, the film shows a map of the surrounding streets and in one scene a clear view of the house number.
In spite of its discreet openness there were activities that fit the frame of the more serious spy films. As the following pdf shows, the facilities were used by “another agency.”
Other interviews were typical of the steady stream of activities unearthed in the Sven-Hedin-Strasse office and lodgings. In the heavily redacted pdf below, we learn of the effort that the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) put into learning about telephone service in Andrews Barracks. Even low-level civilian employees could discover that the Americans had a new device that made a “whistling noise” over communication lines (a modem!).