German authorities have offered to hand over the former holiday home of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist, for free after struggling for decades to find a buyer.
Stefan Evers, Finance Senator of the State of Berlin, announced on Thursday that he was ready to give the dilapidated estate to “anyone” who wanted it.
The 17-hectare estate and villa are currently owned by the state of Berlin and have worried authorities for years due to the astronomical costs of maintaining them, not to mention their dark history.
“I offer everyone who wants to take over the site to take it over as a gift from the state of Berlin,” Mr. Evers told the Berlin House of Representatives this week.
Goebbels, a member of Hitler’s inner circle, had the house built in 1936 and used it for liaisons with various actresses.
After the fall of the Nazi regime, it was briefly used by the Allies as a military hospital before passing into the hands of the Soviets, who transformed it into a youth camp.
Since 2000, the estate, located about 16 km north of Berlin, has been uninhabited and the villa, surrounded by dense forest behind Lake Bogensee, has fallen into ruin. Many windows are boarded or broken and parts of the facade are missing.
Mr. Evers said he was seeking proposals that would do justice to the historic significance of the site, such as its takeover by the federal government or by the neighboring state of Brandenberg, where it is located.
Another possibility would be a new private owner, perhaps with the intention of turning the area into a museum.
The senator warned that if no new owners come forward, “as has been the case in recent decades, the state of Berlin would have no choice but to carry out demolition.”
The state of Brandenberg has so far been reluctant to acquire the site because the renovation costs would amount to around 350 million euros, according to German television channel ZDF.
This leaves the Berlin state with the considerably cheaper option of demolishing it, which would cost 50 million euros.
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