Goebbels Villa to Become Hub in Fight Against Antisemitism
The project's advisor is Brandenburg's antisemitism commissioner Andreas Büttner, a man facing serious questions after his home was apparently attacked by associates he had paid.
"We did not learn [propaganda] in school," Joseph Goebbels once wrote, "but became its masters while doing practical work." As Hitler's minister of propaganda and architect of the Nazi regime's total control over media and public information, Goebbels was one of the Third Reich's most powerful figures. His villa on the Bogensee lake near Wandlitz — technically in Brandenburg, but owned by the state of Berlin — has lain dormant for years, with no one willing to take on the infamous space. Under a new proposal, however, it might become a centre for combating antisemitism.
Of the 273 antisemitic crimes recorded in Brandenburg last year, 235 were committed by right-wing actors. Police attributed just four offences to the political left.
The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) has laid out plans to develop the villa into a hub for fighting extremism, antisemitism, and hateful propaganda in the digital sphere — only, the expert advisor to the project might raise some eyebrows. That role has been taken up by Andreas Büttner, Brandenburg's controversial antisemitism commissioner: a man who takes the battle against antisemitism so seriously that he apparently had his close friends carry it out on his behalf.