Germany’s hard-Right AfD party is seeking to buy a “haunted” castle that was once a Nazi training academy and turn it into a “patriotic centre”.

A senior member of the Thuringia branch of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which has been embroiled in a string of Nazi-related scandals in recent years, has offered to buy the gloomy ruin of the Sanatorium Schwarzeck for an undisclosed sum.

Franz Schmid, an AfD MP in the Thuringia state parliament and treasurer of the party’s youth wing, told Bild newspaper that he had struck a provisional deal on buying the castle.

He said he planned to turn the estate into a “patriotic centre” housing a hotel and event halls, adding: “[The owner] has signalled to me that he is willing to sell.”