Germany will donate Joseph Goebbels’ former mansion in Berlin

The city of Berlin announced that it is willing to donate the land on which it is located the mansion in which Joseph Goebells livedHitler’s propaganda minister. The German capital has been struggling for years to find a new use for this property.

Located on land 40 kilometers from Berlin, in the federal state of Bradenburgthe property of 17 hectares has a private movie theater and spacious rooms with views of the Bogensee side. Now, the person in charge of finances, Stefan Eversdeclared that he is willing to give it away since it is very expensive to maintain.

Berlin and the “gift” of the mansion

Joseph Goebbels first received the land as a gift in 1936. Following this, the Nazi official had a big mansion thanks to the financing of the UFAa powerful society of film production over which he reigned as absolute owner.

The construction – which covers a total of 17 hectares – was made in a “U” shape and inside it housed a private movie theater and spacious rooms with views of the Bogensee lake, where Goebbels received stars, personalities and lovers. After the war the authorities of the former German Democratic Republic built – on the same land where Hitler’s former minister’s villa is located – a large complex in the middle of the forest.

This complex of buildings built in the Stalinist style in the early 1950s housed the training center of the Free German Youth (youth organization of the East German communist party SED). However, over time, the maintenance of the property became unsustainable.

In the absence of a buyer or a corresponding subsidy, Berlin is considering demolishing everything and renew the landsince the annual costs of security and maintenance amount to millions, according to German media outlets Bild and RBB. “I donate the land to whoever wants to recover it. It is a gift from the state of Berlin.“said the head of finance, Stefan Evers, during a discussion on Thursday at the Berlin Chamber of Deputies.

If the demolition plan continues, the city of Berlin should remove buildings from historical monument status. Already in 2016, the Berlin Real Estate Fund had given up selling “the Goebbels villa”, very deteriorated, “for fear that it would fall into disrepair. bad hands and became a pilgrimage site for the Nazis“.

Who was Joseph Goebbels?

Joseph Goebbels He was born on October 29, 1897 and was considered a master of manipulation and one of the great ideas of the communicative machinery of Nazi Germany. During the Second World War, the German politician was appointed Minister of Propaganda and Information, a position he held until his death in 1945.

Goebbels joined the National Socialist German Workers Party in the decade of 1920 and, by 1926, he had already been named as party leader in Berlin. Fluid and convincing oratory, Goebbels was a key player in the proliferation of increasingly virulent and racist speeches in pre-Hitler Germany.

With Hitler in power, Goebbels was appointed Minister of Propaganda and Information, a position with which he remained faithful to the policies he had carried out during his work as leader of the NSDP (National Socialist German Workers Party) in Berlin. During World War II, the role of Goebbels’ ministry was centralize control of the cultural and intellectual life of Germanyemphasizing the radio.

Through this means of communication, Goebbels kept the propaganda machinery of the Third Reich active. Such was his success in the role that, even days before the defeat of the German army, the minister produced a speech that made the population believe that victory was still possible.

Consummated defeat of the Third Reich, Goebbels locked himself with his family in Hitler’s bunker. Subsequently, as the scheming Propaganda Minister of the fallen Reich had planned, an SS officer shot him and his wife and then proceeded to burn their corpses to prevent them from falling into hands of the Soviet army.