During the Third Reich, of the five complexes planned for the benefit of the German working classes under the auspices of the Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude or KdF) leisure movement, only one was ever started. Stretching for 4.8 ks along the north coast of Rügen, an East German island along the Baltic Sea, Prora was built between 1936-9 as part of Adolf Hitler’s KdF. Robert Ley, the leader of the German Labour Front, was responsible for this huge resort project, creating Hitler’s dream for a seaside destination for working families. Some historians have reported that the building work was done by military conscripts, prisoners of war, forced labourers and refugees.
The comparison with Butlins was apt; the resort was designed to be affordable for the average worker, with each of the rooms presenting a sea view. Prora’s eight identical, stark buildings had identical rooms. Each had attractive waterfront views, two beds, wardrobe and a sink, with communal bathrooms on each floor. These basic, functional rooms were intended to offer all German workers some holiday time on the beach, whatever their income.
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Back side of Prora, built on the coast of Rügen Island 1936-39
Post-WW2 Prora remained largely unloved. Of the eight buildings of the original Prora complex, one was transformed into a major YMCA youth hostel and two others were bought by a company outside Germany. A fourth building was occupied by East German troops during the post-war years and was later pulled down by the Soviet army.
Size and historical significance could not protect the buildings from obscurity during the years of the German Democratic Republic. Only now, decades after unification in 1990, is attention shifting back to this heritage from the Third Reich.
The remaining four buildings have undergone the site’s biggest transformation yet. With a $130 million renovation, they now offer luxury accommodation — how very different from the somewhat austere functionality of their planned purpose back in the late 1930s. The renoted Prora complex opened over the northern summer to service middle class holiday-makers.
The units in Block 1 (YMCA youth hostel) have been on sale now since 2016, and they cost from £300,000 (ground floor) - £600,000 (penthouse). Almost every one has now been sold. As the property was called a "historic heritage monument", German buyers are very happy to be given tax breaks.
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Prora Block 1 is ready for modern tourists. Note that the rather dull concrete was painted and beautiful glass added to every balcony looking over the white beach and huge swimming pools. These units are explicitly marketed as second homes for middle age, wealthy people from Hamburg and Berlin. At least in summer! The rest of the renovated complex is expected to be completed by 2022.
Undoubtedly investors are attracted by the tax deductions associated with a heritage monument, but we still have to ask: which history is being commemorated? If there is an interest in maintaining the complex as a memorial, who is showing the most interest? Yes I understand that the Strength Through Joy camp at Prora is being redeveloped and will serve its original purpose – giving holiday makers a great time on the beach. But Owen Hatherley has two important questions 1] Having stood for decades as a relic of Nazi hubris, will the new space ensure Prora’s stands for the future and not the past? And 2] Compared with the delicate way Germany normally deals with its Fascist heritage, how will Prora function as a memorial?
Hatherley adds one last bit of critical and alarming information. Recently election posters all over Rügen urged a vote for the Alternative für Deutschland/AfD, a nasty right-wing party which bases its appeal on hostility to foreigners, family values and an end to interrogations of Germany’s past. The AfD argues there should be an end to monuments of shame such as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. The party’s vote rose sharply in this rural island. Now people can live in the old Strength Through Joy camp and enjoy it as a normal holiday resort; thus the normality the AfD wants from the remnants of Germany’s past is being realised, through the simple wonders of the real estate market.
The comparison with Butlins was apt; the resort was designed to be affordable for the average worker, with each of the rooms presenting a sea view. Prora’s eight identical, stark buildings had identical rooms. Each had attractive waterfront views, two beds, wardrobe and a sink, with communal bathrooms on each floor. These basic, functional rooms were intended to offer all German workers some holiday time on the beach, whatever their income.
Each room overlooked the beach on the front side
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Advertising poster, 1939
The concrete blocks repeated one after another in a row parallel to the coast, connected to nightclubs & restaurants, decades before Mediterranean coastal towns got going. The leisure centres & cafes were decorated with classical columns and the unbuilt festival hall would have been fine. Fun, fresh air, beach activities, amusement and relaxation were to be offered. And some writers even suggested on-site education courses would develop loyalty to the Nazis and strong racial identity among the Aryan working class.
Every decent society wanted to provide cheap and pleasant holiday options for their working families. So it is nonsense to say that “Prora was dangled before the eyes of German workers in the hope that they would find fitting reward for their political acquiescence to Nazism in the late 1930s”. And it is nonsense to say that this holiday resort “was the place where mass murderers were trained”.
Prora never fulfilled its original plan to accommodate 20,000 Deutschen volke that were to be its clients. The outbreak of WW2 suddenly ended its development, and the empty buildings were left standing in silence. By mid 1939, all building stopped & the workers left. The 10,000 rooms were finished but the cinema, grand theatres and swimming pools were still being built and the festival hall was not even started.
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The concrete blocks repeated one after another in a row parallel to the coast, connected to nightclubs & restaurants, decades before Mediterranean coastal towns got going. The leisure centres & cafes were decorated with classical columns and the unbuilt festival hall would have been fine. Fun, fresh air, beach activities, amusement and relaxation were to be offered. And some writers even suggested on-site education courses would develop loyalty to the Nazis and strong racial identity among the Aryan working class.
Every decent society wanted to provide cheap and pleasant holiday options for their working families. So it is nonsense to say that “Prora was dangled before the eyes of German workers in the hope that they would find fitting reward for their political acquiescence to Nazism in the late 1930s”. And it is nonsense to say that this holiday resort “was the place where mass murderers were trained”.
Prora never fulfilled its original plan to accommodate 20,000 Deutschen volke that were to be its clients. The outbreak of WW2 suddenly ended its development, and the empty buildings were left standing in silence. By mid 1939, all building stopped & the workers left. The 10,000 rooms were finished but the cinema, grand theatres and swimming pools were still being built and the festival hall was not even started.
Block 1 (YMCA youth hostel) renovated, 2016
Each glass veranda faces the pools and beach
Post-WW2 Prora remained largely unloved. Of the eight buildings of the original Prora complex, one was transformed into a major YMCA youth hostel and two others were bought by a company outside Germany. A fourth building was occupied by East German troops during the post-war years and was later pulled down by the Soviet army.
Size and historical significance could not protect the buildings from obscurity during the years of the German Democratic Republic. Only now, decades after unification in 1990, is attention shifting back to this heritage from the Third Reich.
The remaining four buildings have undergone the site’s biggest transformation yet. With a $130 million renovation, they now offer luxury accommodation — how very different from the somewhat austere functionality of their planned purpose back in the late 1930s. The renoted Prora complex opened over the northern summer to service middle class holiday-makers.
The units in Block 1 (YMCA youth hostel) have been on sale now since 2016, and they cost from £300,000 (ground floor) - £600,000 (penthouse). Almost every one has now been sold. As the property was called a "historic heritage monument", German buyers are very happy to be given tax breaks.
The original 1930s accommodation might have been basic, but the modern renovation is elegant
Undoubtedly investors are attracted by the tax deductions associated with a heritage monument, but we still have to ask: which history is being commemorated? If there is an interest in maintaining the complex as a memorial, who is showing the most interest? Yes I understand that the Strength Through Joy camp at Prora is being redeveloped and will serve its original purpose – giving holiday makers a great time on the beach. But Owen Hatherley has two important questions 1] Having stood for decades as a relic of Nazi hubris, will the new space ensure Prora’s stands for the future and not the past? And 2] Compared with the delicate way Germany normally deals with its Fascist heritage, how will Prora function as a memorial?
Hatherley adds one last bit of critical and alarming information. Recently election posters all over Rügen urged a vote for the Alternative für Deutschland/AfD, a nasty right-wing party which bases its appeal on hostility to foreigners, family values and an end to interrogations of Germany’s past. The AfD argues there should be an end to monuments of shame such as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. The party’s vote rose sharply in this rural island. Now people can live in the old Strength Through Joy camp and enjoy it as a normal holiday resort; thus the normality the AfD wants from the remnants of Germany’s past is being realised, through the simple wonders of the real estate market.