Places watsonswanderlust Wants to Go

Hitler's bleak vision of relaxation still stands as a mostly abandoned 10,000-room resort complex.

The world's most delightful not-NOT-religion welcomes visitors to the town of Templin, just like its more stoic peers.

The ruined remains of the airport Claus von Stauffenberg departed in his failed attempt to kill Adolf Hitler.

A Nazi concentration camp and Anne Frank's place of death.

The architect of this fanciful complex called it an "oasis for humanity and nature in a sea of rational houses."

Bursting forth from a historic German neighborhood, these day-glo palaces are now a bright fixture in the town.

This Rococo church is known as the most beautiful village church in the world, and does not disappoint.

This 8th-century Bavarian monastery is home to an exquisite Baroque-era library.

The site of a concentration camp where inmates were made to take part in one of the largest counterfeiting operations in history is now hauntingly empty.

A former ironworks that was the first UNESCO industrial site.

An industrial relic is now one of Europe's most staggering art spaces.

Cold war icon and onetime "hole" in the iron curtain.

The "Prussian Versailles" that is as glorious today as when it was built.

One of downtown Berlin's last reminders of its Communist past.

The industrial monstrosity known as Bagger 258 is a colossal mining machine built in the DDR - but now left for dead in a German field.

This German version of Universal Studios holds a vault of treasures from the NeverEnding Story.

An elevator into the Baltic Sea.

The NASA scientists behind Apollo 11 started out developing Nazi weapons at this abandoned German rocket factory.

An abandoned swimming pool decays on the outskirts of Berlin.

The prototype for all Nazi concentration camps.

Terrifying derelict military hospital once housed a recuperating Hitler.

What started as a tongue-in-cheek shrine is now a full-blown museum celebrating "The Hoff" and his longtime love affair with Berlin.

The patron saint of spinsters grasps a container of dried blood.

The 1936 Summer Olympics site is a crumbling remnant of sportsmanship and a history its host country would like to forget.