The island of Ruegen is on Germany's Baltic Sea coast - the Ostsee - and the area around the resort of Binz has a lovely sandy beach. In the 1930's the Third Reich had a program called "Kraft durch Freude" - "Strength through Joy" which was set up to provide affordable leisure activities for the masses. Things available ranged from concerts through to cruises. In 1936 work started on a holiday camp at Prora, just west of Binz. It was to accommodate 20,000 people on state subsidised holidays. Every room was to have a sea view and so the complex ended up being around three miles long running along the back of Prora's sandy beach. Although WW2 broke out before it was finished this is what they did manage to build -
Because of the war it was never used for its original purpose instead it was used as a training centre, a military hospital and to house people from Hamburg made homeless by Allied bombing.
During the Cold War the complex was in the coastal border protection area and was therefore off limits so it wasn't until reunification that the German government had to decide exactly what to do with it. Pull it down or leave it up was probably the first question.
In the end it was decided to bring in the developers and let Prora fulfil its intended use as a leisure complex. It is never going to be an architecturally stunning building but what has been done looks good. It's just Prora's size is so overpowering.
Of course with so much history I just had to stay here, the apartments are really high spec and I'm am glad I've come now before they finish the redevelopment so that I could see what it was originally like.
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