German political party buying 'haunted' Nazi castle to turn it into 'patriotic centre'

Franz Schmid, an AfD MP in the state's parliament and treasurer of the party's youth group told German outlet Bild that he has reached a provisional deal on buying the sanatorium.

Schmid said he plans to turn the estate into a "patriotic centre" containing a hotel and event space, saying: "[The owner] has signalled to me that he is willing to sell."

Schmid is understood to have been looking for a suitable property for his "patriotic centre" project for some time - despite failing in an earlier attempt with Mattsies Castle in the south of Germany.

He said: "We are always struggling with a space problem and cannot get any rooms.

"That is why I would like to make the Schwarzeck available to the AfD and the [youth group] Young Alternative."

The hulking former health retreat had been snapped up 21 years ago - but after the Berlin-based investor who bought it allegedly failed to pay up, the sanatorium fell into disrepair.

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A long-running legal dispute ensued - and now, as a result, property experts have valued the ruin at a measly €5,000 (£4,200).

But the castle has a dark past.

In the Second World War, the sanatorium was used as a Luftwaffe training academy by Hitler's air chief Hermann Goring.

Post-war, Communist Party officials in East Germany turned it into a training camp before it was later repurposed into a hotel.

Schwarzeck is also rumoured to be haunted and has been ransacked by trespassing treasure hunters for years looking for valuables left behind by Goring and his Luftwaffe officials.

But Schmid's takeover bid of the Nazi-linked castle will doubtless raise eyebrows among the AfD's detractors - with the party having faced protests at the start of the year after members had attended meetings with "neo-Nazis".

While in May, Maximilian Krah, the party's top candidate in the European elections, was relieved of his campaign duties after arguing that Nazi SS members were "not all criminals".

But still, the party achieved a landmark victory in Thuringia this year, taking more than a third of the votes in the state - not enough for a majority, but enough to make it the region's largest party.