The Germans sold the former concentration camp area to a real estate investor.

Between April 1944 and April 1945, thousands of prisoners from the Langenstein-Zweberg concentration camp built a 13-kilometre-long system of tunnels under the Theckenberg mountains near Halberstadt. Fighter aircraft and V2 rockets were to be built in the tunnels for the so-called “final victory”.

“Working and living conditions were so inhumane that more than 4,300 people died within twelve months. – As a result of work accidents, diseases, executions and death marches. The monument now commemorates the suffering of these people and the history of the camp, and visitors can visit the tunnel system, Spiegel wrote.

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After the war, the facility was first used by the National People’s Army of the GDR, and then by the German Army. In 1995, the site was sold to a private individual who donated the site, including the tunnels, free of charge to the Langenstein-Zweberg Memorial Centre, which was built in 1976. However, the owner ran into financial problems and the area became part of a bankruptcy estate.

Political and civil society representatives are wondering why the state government has not bought the place. The bankruptcy administrator blames the government, which made several purchase offers, all of which were rejected.

– The state of Saxony-Anhalt has been receiving purchase offers for many years, legal expert André Loeffler told DER SPIEGEL. However, they were rejected and demanded “free use”.

The state Ministry of Culture strongly rejects the trustee’s claim that the government was not interested in buying the facility. It was, but the offers he received were unacceptable for several reasons. On the one hand, because of the high price of over one million euros, and on the other hand, because these offers did not contain any specific information about the facility intended for sale – the t-online portal wrote.

The bankruptcy trustee was asked several times about the missing information but did not respond to inquiries. As a result, the government’s hands were tied because it never received a formally valid purchase offer.

Loeffler sold the tunnels to a Saxon investor for 500,000 zlotys. The new owner is Peter Jugel, a Saxon businessman specializing in “problem real estate”, It has not yet revealed its plans for the site. “We are interested in all types of properties. The bigger the property, the more interesting it is for us,” his company’s website says.

The state government is trying to reassure those who fear that the former concentration camp will become a for-profit museum or something similar. Land use is strictly restricted by the conservation order. Any construction activity must be approved and commercial use is excluded.” – T books online.