The only bidder at an unusual auction on Saturday put down 140,000 euros and walked away the new owner of a small slice of German history: the village of Alwine, population 20. Its empty homes and ageing residents mirror the wider fate of the ex-communist east German hinterlands since the country`s reunification 27 years ago. The anonymous buyer, who bid by telephone, scooped up the community that real estate auctioneers Karhausen had given a starting price of 125,000 euros ($148,000). In 2000, the hamlet was sold to private investors for one `symbolic Deutschmark,` the pre-euro German currency. The two brothers who were the original buyers of its dozen buildings, plus sheds and garages, did not manage to stop its slide into neglect. Only about 20 mostly retired people still live in the cluster of decaying homes in rural Brandenburg state, 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of Berlin.
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