Joseph Goebbel's villa is up for sale

[Kellanved]

BERLIN - A sprawling villa formerly belonging to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels has been put up for sale by the city of Berlin.

The 70-room Villa Waldhof near the capital on Bogensee lake, empty since 1999, has become a financial drag to Berlin given the capital's empty coffers, said Bild newspaper.
...

Following the Nazi defeat in 1945 the villa was turned over to the East German communist youth movement, the Free German Youth (FDJ) under the later East German leader Erich Honecker.

A successor youth organization which used the villa after the 1990 German reunification went bankrupt in 1999. Since then the city of Berlin has been trying to find a use for the property and has now decided to sell it as a potential hotel or private university campus, said Bild.
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=26&story_id=16777&name=Joseph+Goebbel%27s+villa+is+up+for+sale+


http://www.bogensee.com/content/ansicht.htm

[Fenris]

1. Not a particularly attractive building.

But that's just my opinion.

[mark414]

2. if i had the money...

i would buy it and burn it to the ground

...and build a jewish community center on its ashes

[CatWoman]

5. why would you burn down a part of history?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

7. Indeed. Make a jewish community center of the building as it is. (nt)

[Zuni]

11. Exactly. Why let people forget Goebbels?

I think people should see reminders of him.

[Itchinjim]

3. Karl Rove? Paging Karl Rove!

[Bronco69]

Paging KKKarl Rove!

KKKarl Rove call your office! :-)

[fertilizeonarbusto]

4. Is Cheney retiring there? n/t

[Magrittes Pipe]

6. Wewelsburg is far more aesthetically pleasing.

Then again, Himmler always had a sense of panache that Goebbels lacked.

[UncleSepp]

8. The building in the pic is a DDR creation

The part of that property which had belonged to Goebbels was the Landhaus, a building next to it with a garage and workshop, and a small cabin. What's in the picture is a seminar hall built after the DDR took possession of the property and turned it into a school.

The original plan for the original buildings was to be a retirement home for actors, actresses, and others from the film and entertainment industry. That's one of the reasons why the house that was built after the little cabin was bigger than necessary. Of course, with six kids running around all over the place, a big house is a good thing. (That's a bit misleading. The full-time live-in house wasn't at Lanke, it was on Schwanenwerder.)

In all seriousness, a private university could make very good use of the property. The school facilities are already in place from the DDR time. There should be a pretty good sized kitchen in the Landhaus that might tolerate conversion to a commercial kitchen. A business school teaching hotel and restaurant management would really be able to make full use of the space by running a convention facility out of some of the DDR era buildings and perhaps a B and B or boutique inn out of the Landhaus.

It's a bunch of buildings, Communist-era official buildings and an NS-era house. It's not like it's haunted or something - the ghost of Dr. G's not going to be walking around in his bathrobe at 3 AM flipping light switches on and off, or canoodling with the ghost of Lida Baarova down by the boat house. It's just a bunch of buildings, a quite expensive bunch of buildings. It's also been for sale for quite some time.

[amazona]

9. good Lord why don't they just knock it down?

Can you imagine how that would go over at the dinner party?

"Oh, so you know, the place used to belong to...Joseph Goebbels?"

"Who?"

"The Nazi guy."

"You bought a house from a Nazi guy?"

"No, no, I got it off some bankrupt east Germans but it used to belong to Goebbels."

I dunno. It just doesn't seem like a way to increase one's popularity in this world unless you were David Duke or something.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[UncleSepp]

12. How much of Germany do you want knocked down?

How about the labor office? Used to be a propaganda ministry building. Maybe they should knock down a perfectly good building and build a new one? How about the Air Ministry offices? Maybe someone should raze Tempelhof Airport, who needs a commuter airport in a busy city anyway - let 'em all fly out of Tegel, the planes might get sixty-year-old Nazi funk on the wheels. Rip up any of the remaining Speer-designed street lights, tear down the Olympiastadion - no sense making functional use out of a functional object if it's got Nazi cooties!

How about a building that started out private before the Nazis, went to the Church, then had Nazis move in, then was taken by the Americans and then the Church and then privatized again? Do you knock it down or build a shrine on it? How about a Jewish home seized by a Nazi, then by a Communist, then by the current government? Do you sell it in bits because it was Communist, burn it down because it was Nazi, or plate it in gold because it was Jewish? How about none - it was none of those, it was a house.

[leftofthedial]

10. so Limbaugh is moving soon?