Arno Specht

Thuringia is known as the 'green heart of Germany', offering idyllic landscapes from the Thuringian Forest to the Rhön, as well as tourist highlights like the charming old town of Weimar and the proud Wartburg in Eisenach. However, Thuringia also has another face: hidden in its picturesque mountains and valleys are many mysterious places where people once lived, worked, or sought healing, now left to decay. Authors Arno Specht and Uwe Schimunek, along with photographers Babett Köhler, Peter Männig, and Adrian Specht, guide readers to 14 of the most exciting ghost sites in Thuringia. Among the featured buildings and estates are the hunting lodge Rathsfeld in the legendary Kyffhäuser Mountains, which hosted Kaiser Wilhelm II as well as soldiers seeking rest, the fashionable Sophienheilstätte near Bad Berka, which once housed tuberculosis patients, and the luxurious guesthouse in Oberhof belonging to Walter Ulbricht. Through atmospheric texts and photographs, the book tells the stories hidden behind the crumbling facades and captures the morbid fascination that these enduring buildings exude.