Last year, Berlin’s Finance Ministry renewed its offer to give a lakeside villa to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.
In a last-ditch effort to avoid demolition of the villa, which has been left unused since 2000, the State of Berlin decided to offer it as a “gift” to anyone willing to undertake the heavy maintenance.
Built in the National Socialist architectural style and located on Lake Bogensee, northeast of Berlin, the crumbling villa complex can now be saved following the temporary transfer of the site to the municipality of Wandlitz to host guided tours and events, the German Press Agency (dpa) reports.
Berlin has not given up ownership of the property and will continue to pay annual management costs of approximately €200,000 ($233 million).
According to the German public broadcaster, RBB, the municipality of Wandlitz had been trying for years to obtain permission to use the site and was eventually planning to raise funds to completely renovate the property, which would cost an estimated €300 million.
The rise and fall of Villa Bogense
The villa was built for Goebbels on a 17-hectare (42-acre) plot of land just outside Berlin, which the city had gifted him in 1936.
The former Nazi PR chief used it as a retreat from his Berlin-based wife and six children. In addition to entertaining Nazi leaders, artists and actors, it is believed that Goebbels also used the villa as a love nest for his many secret affairs.
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For about a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the villa was put to various uses before being largely abandoned. Maintenance and upkeep has become a difficult task for the Berlin state and federal government.
Germany has long struggled with how to deal with former Nazi sites. Demolishing them would mean erasing the history they represent, while there is always the risk that if left, they would mobilize far-right extremists.
sb/rmt/nm (AFP, AP, dpa)