Last year, Berlin’s Finance Ministry renewed its offer to give away a lakeside villa built for propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.
In a last attempt to avoid the demolition of the villa, which has been left unused since 2000, the state of decided to offer it as a “gift” to anyone willing to take on the hefty upkeep.
Built in the National Socialist architectural style and located on Bogensee Lake in the northeast of Berlin, the crumbling villa complex may now have been saved following the site’s temporary transfer to the municipality of Wandlitz to host guided tours and events, reported the German Press Agency (dpa).
Berlin has not relinquished ownership of the property and will continue to pay the annual management costs of around €200,000 ($233 million).
According to German public broadcaster, RBB, the Wandlitz municipality had been trying for years to obtain permission to utilize the site and ultimately plans to raise funds to fully renovate the property, which will cost an estimated €300 million.
The rise and fall of Villa Bogensee
The villa was constructed for Goebbels on a 17-hectare (42-acre) plot of land just outside Berlin that the city gifted him in 1936.
The former Nazi PR chief used it as a retreat from his Berlin-based wife and six children. Apart from entertaining leaders, artists and actors, Goebbels was also believed to have used the villa as a love nest for his many secret affairs.
After Goebbels and his wife killed themselves and their children in a Berlin bunker in 1945, the villa was briefly used as a military hospital before being used by the youth wing of the East German communist party.
For about a decade following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the villa was put to various uses before being largely abandoned. Maintenance and upkeep have become an onerous task for the state of Berlin and the federal government.
has long struggled with how to deal with former Nazi sites. Demolishing them would mean erasing the history they represent, while there is also always the risk that far-right extremists will congregate if they are left abandoned.
sb/rmt/nm (AFP, AP, dpa)
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