ATTENTION ALL MILLIONAIRES: FRUSTRATED with recession-wracked investments? Looking for a property with a bit of history? Then why not buy America?

Well, make that Amerika. That's the way they spell it in Germany, where the town of Amerika is up for sale. The entire 27-acre property, located in a peaceful valley 36 miles from Leipzig, is being sold by the German government, with an asking price of just $7 million. The lucky purchaser gets 40 public buildings (including the train station and electricity generating plant), 1.2 miles of lush property along the river Mulde, an abandoned textile plant and even a view of fields of amber waving grain. Amerika has fallen on hard times since the ancient money-losing mill was shuttered last December, throwing most of the village's 112 residents out of work. Ex—plant worker Ruth Zieschong pleads, "Someone, please, save Amerika."

According to Hans Friedrich, 61, a local student of Amerikan history, the town got its unusual name in 1858. "The early inhabitants were clearing out the thick forests and remarked about the hard work by saying, 'What are we doing, discovering America?' " The name became so entrenched that when Amerika became part of East Germany in 1949, the Communist government didn't change it, even though the surrounding area became Karl Marx County.

Officials plan to woo investors at a Discover Amerika festival on, appropriately, Columbus Day. Over burgers and Cokes, they will be asked to bring a business, any business, to Amerika. "This is a real land of opportunity for someone who wants a foothold in Europe," proclaims consultant B. Scott Bolls, a true-blue American employed by the government agency selling off East German properties.

If a rich Yank isn't found to purchase the town, Amerika just might be offered to the Japanese.