Expatica blogger sets out to unveil the truth behind the beautiful spacious villa built in the back of beyonds by a top Nazi officer in WWII.

MYSTERY has surrounded Villa Winter since it was built in 1937. Why was a beautiful spacious villa built in the back of beyonds, accessible only by sea, or miles of dirt track? Was it co-incidence that it was just before the outbreak of the Second World War? And why was a top-class engineer, who held the rank of Colonel, buried in this isolated place during the war? Why was one of the top brass not helping his country when he was needed?

What was really going on in Villa Winter? A sense of adventure took me down there recently, to this isolated, now neglected villa in Cofete, on the northern edge of the Jandia peninsula.

Even today, it’s not the easiest place to get to on Fuerteventura. When you leave Morro Jable, you get to a dirt road, which then turns into a track. This track leads up into, around and over the mountains.

At the top, there’s a lookout point where you can park. I was very nearly blown over here by the very strong breeze. The track begins winding down from here and soon you’ll see what you’ve driven all this way for – Villa Winter. A large two-storey house, a tower at one end and a balcony in the front.

What’s known about this villa that’s miles from anywhere? It was built by Gustav Winter in 1937. He was a German, one of the top brass in the Nazi party. How he got all the building equipment to the site is anybody’s guess.

To go by road – the road we’d just driven – would have been well nigh impossible 70 years ago. The villa was built to establish agriculture in the area – or so he said. And shortly before her death, his widow denied that her husband and the villa had any connections to the Nazi party or was intended to be a safe haven for Hitler.

Rumours have abounded for years about the villa but no one knows the truth. The one question that is continually asked is why was Winter spending the war years here in Fuerteventura? Why was he not back in Germany with Hitler? What was he doing at the villa? Bear in mind that armed guards with large dogs patrolled the road.

Any visitor had to identify himself and his reason for being there. If verified by Winter, they had to continue on a dirt track to the villa. There’s a rumour that this was built by political prisoners who were held captive at a concentration camp at Tefia.

And a small airport runway was also built there for Winter, between the villa and the sea. Was this for a quick getaway or bringing top-escaping Nazis to a safe haven, probably en route to America? And after some of the local people had seen the inside of the villa, there were suspicions that it was being used by plastic surgeons giving a new face to these, to match their new identities.

Did soldiers arriving by submarine use the villa? Was it for rest and recuperation? There are also rumours about tunnels leading down to the sea. Allied ships were often attacked by German subs that surrounded and protected Fuerteventura. Who were they protecting? Was it a communications base?

We drove through the small village of Cofete and out towards the villa.

There’s a very rough track right up to the house (the one supposedly built by the prisoners of war?) and drove around to the back. One wall here is riddled with what clearly look like bullet holes. Some of the doors and windows are bricked up. As we looked around, a man, obviously the caretaker, emerged from a wooden door.

Speaking in my best Spanish, I asked would it be possible to have a look inside.

To my amazement, he said yes. We walked through into a courtyard filled with banana trees. The villa was built in typical fashion – rooms downstairs and upstairs surrounded the central courtyard.

He led us round to the far side and opened a door to let us in to the main part of the villa. It’s in a fairly dilapidated condition, which is a pity, but walking around the rooms, you get a chilling sense of history.

There are two rooms, leading out to the front balcony. Looking down towards the sea, the garden below is on three levels and over to the right there’s a bunker of some kind. It’s easy to imagine submarines arriving stealthily close to the coast and soldiers coming on to the beach before walking to the house.

Downstairs, the kitchen is sinister. It still has an old oven intact, as well as a sink. The walls are white-tiled and the room, which is large, could very easily cater for big numbers. Was this a sterile room for plastic surgery or a kitchen?.

What is still amazing is the quality of the work everywhere in the villa. The ceilings have a good finish, with wooden beams in one of the main rooms.

One of my companions, who worked for years in the telecoms industry, couldn’t get over the communication wires that were still in the walls. As well as telephone wires, there were other communication wires all over the villa, including upstairs in the small rooms and the tower.  So although the villa was isolated, it was clear there were excellent communication links with the outside world.

We left reluctantly, no further to the truth than we had been before our visit. But with a sense of having explored some bit of our adopted island’s history.

Jeanne Quigley is Expatica Spain's blogger from Fuerte. Her fortnightly blogs will be published on alternate Fridays.