Berlin to give away Goebbels’ villa for free

The new owner of Goebbels' Villa Bogensee would be responsible for the main building, outhouses and surrounding 17 hectares of land in northern Berlin.

Berlin offers up abandoned Nazi villa to new owner, for free

The state finance ministry in Berlin has announced that it will give away the villa of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels for free, to anyone willing to take over the site.

“I am offering anyone who would like to take over the site to take it over as a gift from the state of Berlin,” Finance Minister Setfan Evers (CDU) said on the Bundestag floor.

According to Berliner Zeitung, it currently costs the state of Berlin millions of euros each year to maintain and secure the site in Wandlitz, 15 kilometres north of the capital. 

Since neither the state of Brandenburg nor the commune of Wandlitz is interested in taking over the space, Evers explained that unless a suitable new owner is found, the city will demolish the villa and surrounding buildings to turn the space into a green area.

Villa Bogensee has been unused since 2000

Gifted to Goebbels in 1936, the villa on the banks of the Bogensee was used by the propaganda minister to entertain fellow Nazis, artists and actors.

Following the Nazi defeat in 1945, the building briefly became a military hospital before housing an education centre for the Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth), the official youth movement of the GDR’s founding and ruling Socialist Unity Party.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the building has been used for other purposes for short periods but has been abandoned since 2000.

Thumb image credit: Maurizio Fabbroni / Shutterstock.com