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Berlin has repeatedly tried to hand over the site to federal authorities or the state of Brandenburg, where the villa is located, rather than continue to pay for maintenance and security at the complex, which has become overgrown and crumbling.
Evers renewed that bid Thursday, calling for proposals that reflect the site’s history.
He did not say whether proposals from private individuals would also be considered.
“If we fail again, as we have in recent decades, then Berlin has no choice but to carry out the destruction we have already prepared for,” Evers said.
Goebbels, one of Hitler’s closest allies, built the luxury villa in 1939 on a wooded site overlooking Lake Bogensee near the town of Wandlitz, about 40 kilometers north of Berlin.
Retiring from Berlin, where he lives with his wife and six children, Goebbels used the villa and an earlier house on the site to entertain Nazi leaders, artists and actors – and is believed to have served as a love nest for secret affairs.
After the war, the 17-hectare site was briefly used as a hospital before being taken over by the youth wing of the East German Communist Party, which built a training center including several large apartment blocks.
After German reunification in 1990, ownership of the site returned to the province of Berlin.
However, the city found no use for it.
The site has since become an attraction for day-trippers who can make their way through the overgrown grounds and peer through the cottage’s floor-to-ceiling windows.
Goebbels returned to Berlin in the final phase of World War II. He and his wife kill themselves and their children with cyanide capsules in Hitler’s bunker as Soviet troops approach.
The family’s lavish home on an island in Berlin was auctioned in 2011.
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