Jugenderholungsheim Endlerkuppe
THE ABANDONED HOSTEL IN GERMANY
This building was built in 1928 as ‘Jugenderholungsheim Endlerkuppe’ by architect Kurt Bärbig. It was a recreation center where children could spend their holidays.
The youth hostel is located on the hill Endlerkuppe, north of the Kirnitzschtal. The recreation home was meant for children of the working class. It offered space for 80 boys and 80 girls. The bedrooms were housed in the side wings, one for boys and another one for the girls. Part of the girls’ wing was the library, with room for a thousand books and many magazines. It also had a fireplace, for cozy stories in the evening. The main building had a large dining- and ballroom with a big stage. Also, remarkable is the observation tower, it had a big water tank and viewing platform.
Bund Deutscher Mädel
In 1933, it was home of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM). This was the girls’ wing of the youth movement of the Nazi Party, the Hitler Jugend. In fact, it was the only legal female youth organization in Nazi Germany. At the early 1940s it was also used by the Lebensborn, an SS-initiated, state-supported, registered association in Nazi Germany with the goal of raising the birth rate of “racially pure and healthy” children.
Following the Second World War, the building served as a school for the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the SED. However, the buildings fell into disuse after the collapse of the Iron Curtain in the early 1990s. Redevelopment efforts began in 2009 to transform the site into a luxury hotel, but the project was halted for reasons that remain unclear. My visit to ‘Jugenderholungsheim Endlerkuppe’ took place in 2016.
