I've been reading about the Koloss von Prora (Colossus of Prora) for so many years, I just had to see it with my own eyes. And to be honest, you really have to see it to believe the sheer scale of this ginormous complex.
Built between 1936 and 1939, The Colossus of Prora was planned as a mass holiday resort for Nazi Germany and was going to have space for 20,000 people to holiday at the same time, with every room having a sea view. The organisation Kraft durch Freude (Strength through joy) was going to run it as a sort of Nazi version of Butlins, bringing affordable holidays to the masses. The onset of World War II in 1939 meant that construction was stopped and it was never used in the way it was intended. After the war the buildings were first a Soviet and later an East German Military base.
The buildings (originally 8 identical blocks) extend over a length of around 4.5km alongside a beautiful sandy beach on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. It really is a colossus.
Three of the blocks have been more or less completely destroyed and the five remaining ones are slowly but surely being converted into holiday apartments. There is also a hotel, a youth hostel and a museum in part of the buildings.
Below are few more pictures I took this summer.
Above: Sea facing side. Below: Land facing side with staircase.
Above: A recently completed conversion into holiday apartments. Below: Left over of a mainly destroyed block. Bottom images: One massive building site.
