The villa of Joseph Goebbels, the head of the propaganda machine in Nazi Germany, could become a center for education against the spread of hatred.
It is located near Berlin in the state of Brandenburg.
Namely, the European Jewish Association became interested in this villa, which has been in the weeds for decades, and in the property around it, with the intention of buying it and turning it into an educational center about how propaganda led to the Holocaust.
They also want to deal with current propaganda in the era of "growing hatred and anti-Semitism on the continent," Rabbi Menachim Margolin told Euronews.
"We will again find ourselves in a situation where, not only in Germany, but also in other European countries, there will be officially democratically elected governments, and the people who will be elected will be those who hate Jews, who hate those who are different from them," Rabbi Margolin said.
However, the realization of this idea requires a lot of money. The European Jewish Organization could contribute part of the funds, they expect the government to be able to finance the rest, but the government is not sure it could do it.
This luxurious villa was built for Goebbels in 1939 in a wooded landscape overlooking Lake Bogenze near the town of Wandlitz, about 40 kilometers north of Berlin.
Goebbels often invited guests there - other Nazi leaders, artists and actors, and he also used it as a "love nest" for extramarital affairs.
The house has the remains of an underground bunker, a cinema and a richly decorated banquet hall still intact, with a fireplace, oak ceiling and French windows giving access to a large terrace.
When the Allied forces began bombing Berlin, Goebbels came to the villa with his wife Magda and their children and continued to write propaganda there, including his famous speech at the "Sportspalast" in 1943 in which he called on the Germans for "Total War".
They left the house at the end of April 1945 to join Hitler in his bunker. After the head of Nazi Germany committed suicide on April 30, Goebbels and his wife poisoned their six children a day later and committed suicide not long after.
After the war, the 17-hectare property was briefly used as a hospital, then taken over by the East German Communist Party, where a training center and sleeping facilities were built.
With the unification of the two Germanys in 1990, the site again fell under the ownership of Berlin. However, the city authorities did not know what to do with him. Since then, the property has become interesting to hikers who had to make their way through the vegetation to get to the house and peer through its huge windows.
Despite its historical status, it has become a big burden for the city authorities, and according to the "New York Times", just taking care that the building does not collapse completely costs them as much as 280.000 euros a year.
Source: Euronews
