Prora is an abandoned former Nazi vacation resort of gigantic proportions. Located on the German island of Ruegen on the Baltic Sea, it was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler. The resort’s objective was to provide every German worker with an opportunity to spend a holiday at the beach. Construction started in 1936. But after three years, plans changed because the Nazis redirected their focus. Because World War II had started, all construction ceased. The seaside resort was never finished and remained untouched for decades.
Prora – an abandoned former Nazi vacation resort on the German island of Ruegen on the Baltic Sea. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia. www.walled-in-berlin.com
All about Prora
Clemens Klotz won the design competition that gave rise to Prora. Hitler’s chief architect Albert Speer administered the contest, and Nazi’s tourism operator, Kraft durch Freude – KdF (Strength Through Joy), planned the project. The group was well-qualified to run such a gigantic project because twenty-five million Germans had already participated in at least one of their trips.
The plan was for Prora to become a tourist destination for 20,000 working-class Germans, similar to the Butlins in Great Britain. Blueprints called for eight identical housing blocks with 10,000 rooms to stretch 2.75 miles along the shore of Ruegen. The project is so large that it still takes almost two hours to walk around the entire complex. Originally, its compact rooms measured 16 feet by 8 feet and accommodated two beds, a wardrobe and a sink. Communal toilets, showers and bathrooms were on each floor. All rooms overlooked the sea, with corridors and bathrooms on the land side.
Postwar uses of Prora
During Allied bombings during World War II, one of Prora’s housing blocks served as a temporary shelter for the people of Hamburg. In 1945, the Soviet Army took control of the region and established a military base at the unfinished resort. Two of the housing blocks were demolished in the late 1940s and rebuilt by the East German military in the 1950s. After the formation of the East German National People’s Army in 1956, the buildings housed several East German Army units. Following German reunification in 1990, the West German armed forces took over the building.
Prora Today
In 2004, following more than a decade of unsuccessful attempts to sell the site as a whole, the housing blocks were sold off individually. In 2011, the largest youth hostel in Germany opened its doors in one of the housing blocks. Five years later, the Prora Solitaire Hotel opened in another block. And the Berlin firm Metropole developed five-star vacation condominiums and spa in a third block. According to the developer, 95% of the flats are sold. Three more condo blocks are scheduled to follow. The Prora complex has a formal heritage listing as a particularly striking example of Third Reich architecture.
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Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
