The large villa and the 170-acre estate are located four miles north of Berlin. The villa is named after the lake Bogensee nearby and was built in 1936.
Joseph Goebbels was given the position of Minister of Information and Propaganda when the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933.
He is considered the strategist behind the Third Reich’s portrayal of itself, and the phrase “if a lie is repeated often enough, it eventually becomes the truth” is said to have been coined by him.
Villa Bogensee was used by Goebbels as a kind of refuge from life in the capital Berlin.
He spent a lot of time there with his wife Magda and his six children. But it is also said to have been a place where the minister of propaganda met his mistresses.
Hitler’s heir
For many years, Goebbels was one of Adolf Hitler’s most trusted men, and the one designated by Hitler to take over as chancellor when the leader chose to take his own life on 30 April 1945.
But Goebbels, who was among the most fanatical and uncompromising of the National Socialists, refused the day he ruled to agree to capitulation and chose the same way as Hitler
Together with his wife Magda, he committed suicide on 1 May 1945. The couple also chose to take their six children with them in death.
The property is in great disrepair and the authorities in Berlin are tired of paying for security and maintenance.
Photo: JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP
Unwanted country house
After the war, the country house was for a short period used by the Allies as a military hospital.
It then became a folk high school for youth, after the leadership of the Soviet occupation forces in 1946 gave the property to the organization Den frie German Youth.
Since 2000, the villa has been empty, and the decay is extensive. A renovation of the building and grounds is estimated to cost millions of euros.
The state authorities in Berlin have involuntarily been left with the ownership of the property.
Over the years, they have tried to transfer ownership to the German federal state, the state of Brandenburg and the municipality of Wandlitz where the villa is located, but without success.
No one wants to own Villa Bogensee.
It comes with 170 acres of garden and forest in addition to the large house, which is just over 4 miles north of Berlin.
Photo: Patrick Pleul / AP
Guard duty
The villa is nevertheless an attraction. People take day trips to the overgrown property, enter through the garden and peek in through the windows.
Berlin’s state government says it can no longer bear the costs of security and maintenance, which amount to millions. They are now seriously considering demolishing the villa.
– I will offer it to anyone who wants to take over the place, as a gift from the state of Berlin, said Berlin’s Finance Minister Stefan Evers on Thursday,
– If we fail again, as we have done in the past decades, Berlin will have no other choice but to carry out the demolition we have already prepared, Evers said, according to the news agency DPA and the broadcaster RTL.
The Minister of Finance did not say anything about whether the state might consider giving the villa to private stakeholders.
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