Hitler’s vacation paradise is reinvented as condos, hotels, spa

PRORA, Germany — Built by the Third Reich in the run-up to World War II, the Strength Through Joy resort was a Nazi vision of tourism’s future. Happy, healthy Aryans would stay and play at the 10,000-room complex on the Baltic Sea, eating, swimming and even bowling for the Führer. Think Hitler’s Cancun.

But 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the complex nicknamed the Colossus of Prora is part of a growing debate in modern Germany that pits commercialism against Vergangenheitsbewältigung — or the German word for how the country should come to terms with its dark past.

Identical blocks of six-story buildings stretching for 2.8 miles went up before World War II slowed construction, leaving an unfinished hulk that was later retrofitted into training grounds and housing for East German soldiers. But a group of investors in this seaside town is now doing what the Nazis never could: realizing the site’s final stage of transformation into a vacation wonderland. Large parts of the complex are being gutted and rebuilt into developments, including one called “New Prora” that will house luxury beachfront condominiums — half of which have been sold — as well as an upscale hotel and spa.

It’s not just the cashing in on a major Nazi landmark that troubles opponents. In a sense, some argue, the renovation also is fulfilling the Third Reich’s initial plan to turn the colossus into a massive tourism hub. In promotional material, developers are hailing the original project — whose design is believed to have been chosen by Adolf Hitler — as a “world-famous monument” recognized in its day for “award-winning architecture.” Nevertheless, critics say, their plans also may wash away many of the elements that provided the reason for preserving the colossus in the first place.

“These are not harmless buildings,” said Jürgen Rostock, co-founder for the Prora documentation center. “The original purpose for Hitler was the construction of [a resort] in preparation for the war to come. This way of dealing with the building trivializes it and affirms the Nazi regime.”

Source:The washington Post