Prora

On our second day in Sassnitz, Brian and I rode creaky rental bikes to Prora. 

It seems idyllic – a family-friendly resort, looking out to the Baltic Sea from the quiet island of Rügen...except it was built by the Nazis. Prora was designed by the KdF, the Nazi branch in charge of leisure activities. The letters stand for Kraft durch Freude, or strength through joy. 

Prora was meant to be a vacation destination for as many as 20,000 people at a time. The buildings stretch almost 5km down the beach. It would give the people an affordable vacation, all under the government's control. The idea was a little like an all-inclusive resort, minus the swim-up bar, plus a little extra surveillance.

Construction on the complex of buildings at Prora started in 1938, but was never finished. World War 2 broke out instead. When Rügen became part of East Germany after the war, the Russian army used some buildings at Prora for military training. They even brought in military leaders from countries where the Russians were encouraging Communism to grow, like Cuba, Nicaragua and Cameroon, and educated them at Prora (sort of like the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, GA, except for the other side). 

 

This place was entirely creepier than the abandoned army based we’d seen a couple of days earlier. The disturbing thing is that it's not abandoned. It’s being used… almost just as the Nazis intended. A Christian youth group was there, camping and playing team-building games on the lawn. In front of these vacant bulidings, with peeling paint and shared bathrooms where no one has ever showered, hundreds of East Germans played on the beach. They set up their umbrellas and built their sandcastles, all in the shadows of the place Hitler and his people had made for exactly that purpose.

I did not swim in the water at Prora. But later in the day, back in Sassnitz, I went about waist-deep. The rocks were sharp and the air wasn’t so warm. I waded deep enough to say that I’d been in the Baltic, but I still didn't find the swim-up bar.