A disused airfield in Oranienburg, 35 kilometres (22 miles) north of Berlin
© AFP/DDP/File Michael UrbanORANIENBURG, Germany (AFP) - The mayor of Oranienburg even talks about building a miniature replica of the Great Wall of China on the outskirts of the town, which was home to the Nazi's notorious Sachsenhausen concentration camp and later became part of communist East Germany.
But Hans-Joachim Laesicke insists that the Chinese fantasy he plans to put side-by-side with the town's muscular Prussian architecture in a bid to attract tourists "will not be a Disneyland."
"People will work here, live here and at the same time provide an authentic look at Chinese culture," Laesicke told AFP.
Architects have already drawn up plans for a village based on those dating back to the reign of the Tang Dynasty with single-storey houses with sloping roofs set on narrow streets.
If they do go up, the houses would resemble those that are being bull-dozed in Beijing's old town as China's economic development steams ahead and real estate prices rocket ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games.
The economic picture could not be more different in the low-density, low-rent environs of Berlin.
A disused airfield in Oranienburg, 35 kilometres (22 miles) north of Berlin
© AFP/DDP/File Michael UrbanAlmost 20 years after German reunification, the towns of the former communist east are still battling unemployment and an exodus of young people trying to build their lives elsewhere.
The Chinatown project is meant to draw not only visitors but foreign investors and revitalise rundown Oranienburg with its 40,000 residents.
Laesicke said the development would house some 2,000 Chinese immigrants who would ideally open restaurants and traditional Chinese medicine practices.
It is something of a last resort -- some say a pipe dream -- in a country that has a vast Turkish immigrant community but only 80,000 people of Chinese origin, accounting for about 0.1 percent of the population.
Germany has no real history of Chinese enclaves like those that sprung up organically in New York, San Francisco, Paris and London in the last century and became both bustling ethnic ghettos and exotic tourist attractions.
In the 1920s, a sizeable Chinese community tried to settle in the northern German port of Hamburg, but most fled a decade or so later when the Nazis took power.
The local council in Oranienburg is determined to brave the odds.
For a long time, it tried to sell the 80 hectares (about 200 acres) of overgrown landing strip next to the B96 highway but local businesses would not bite, preferring to head for the outskirts of nearby Berlin, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) south, to set up their offices and factories.
A disused airfield in Oranienburg, 35 kilometres (22 miles) north of Berlin
© AFP/DDP/File Michael UrbanYet Laesicke says Chinese businessmen are poised to invest up to 500 million euros (693 million dollars) to get the project off the ground.
The would-be investors mainly come from Harbin, China's 10th biggest city.
He said many have travelled to Oranienburg and made proposals which he has relayed to the regional cabinet in Frankfurt-on-the-Oder for approval.
The authorities in the regional capital gave their initial go-ahead for the project in May and at this point, building is tentatively set down to start in 2010.
But there are many sceptics, both in Oranienburg and Berlin, who shake their heads at the idea that a functional Chinatown could be built in a totally artificial manner.
"It is highly unlikely that the Chinese will move there when they are already well-integrated in Berlin," said Carola Wodtcke, the head of the German-Chinese friendship society.
©AFP