The government of Berlin aims to give away a mansion once owned by a prominent Nazi figure for free to anyone willing to take it as a state gift. The high maintenance cost of the villa, which is in a dilapidated state, has prompted the government to take this decision. The villa once belonged to Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.
Berlin’s finance minister, Stefan Evers, conveyed to the state parliament an offer to transfer ownership of the site, presenting it as a gift from the state of Berlin, as the German Press Agency reported. The city has persistently sought relief from responsibility for the property, preferring to hand it over to federal authorities or the state of Brandenburg, where the villa is situated.
This move to give away the property aims to discontinue the financial burden of maintaining and securing the complex. The luxury villa, constructed in 1939 for Joseph Goebbels, one of Hitler’s closest confidants, stands amidst wooded surroundings overlooking Bogensee Lake near Wandlitz, approximately 40 km north of Berlin. Goebbels utilised the villa and a preceding residence on the premises as a retreat from Berlin, where he resided with his wife and six children. The site served as a venue for entertaining Nazi dignitaries, artists, and actors, and was purportedly utilized for clandestine romantic liaisons.
After the Second World War came to an end, the mansion was briefly used as a military hospital. Following this, the youth wing of the East German Communist Party assumed control of the property and established a training centre, complete with multiple sizable accommodation facilities. When Germany was reunified in 1990, ownership of the site reverted to the state of Berlin. However, the city struggled to find a purpose for it. For the next three decades, the Berlin government left the villa as it was and it became a den of miscreants and frequent gatecrashers who trespassed over the property to make videos and reels.
In the latter stages of World War II, Goebbels returned to Berlin. As Soviet forces approached, he and his wife chose to end their lives along with their children by consuming cyanide capsules in Hitler’s bunker.
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