A GERMAN city is offering free flats, pub socials and hiking trips to lure in a new generation - but there's tough competition.

The new programme hopes to address the picturesque city of Eisenhüttenstad t's dwindling population by giving two lucky young people the chance to live there for free.

Dubbed an "amazing architectural place" by Tom Hanks, the Soviet-style city, on the Polish border, was built around a steel plant after WW2 and has relied on its production ever since.

This is something, Axel Drieschner, curator at the city’s Utopia and Everyday Life museum, says risks turning the area into a "ghost town".

Now, in a bid to curb depopulation, officials are offering families a whole host of freebies as part of their 'try out living' programme - or Probewohnen in German.

As the

See Full Page