Video: Why the largest sanatorium of the Third Reich has never seen vacationers: The giant health factory on the island of Rügen
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The world's largest hotel is located on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. It has 10,000 bedrooms with sea views. The hotel stretches over three miles along clean sandy beaches. But for 70 years now, it was built, and its walls were never destined to see tourists.
This hotel is called Prora. It is such a massive complex that the locals called it the Colossus. It is a monumental structure with eight buildings. All are typical and the same. All this splendor is located 150 meters from the white sandy beach. Prora is located in a bay between the regions of Sassnitz and Binz. The bay separates the Grosser Yasmunder Bodden lagoon from the Baltic Sea.
The Prora Hotel was built by the Nazis between 1936 and 1939 as part of the Kraft durch Freude (KdF) program. The goal of this program was not only to provide quality leisure time for German workers, but also to spread Nazi propaganda.
It took 9,000 people to build this giant and took three years. The Nazi regime had long-term plans. It was planned to create four more such resorts: with a cinema, festival halls, swimming pools and a pier where cruise ships "Power through joy" will dock.
The program "Strength through Joy" itself was also a very ambitious social project of the government of Nazi Germany. Its purpose was to organize and enjoy the leisure of the working class. This project was conceived as a copy of a similar Italian "Organization of post-labor rest". But Hitler's plans were to surpass the Italian organization in everything. The leisure of the German workers with the help of the organization "Strength through Joy" was indeed very varied. Tourist trips both in Germany and abroad were organized. You could go hiking. In the program of the project, much attention was paid to the sports development of the population. The organization took care of the spiritual development and paid for cultural trips to the theater, cinema, musical events and festivals. For all this, the workers contributed mere pennies to the organization's fund; all the trips and entertainment were affordable for any worker.
The organization built hotels and holiday homes for working people. Hitler's plans for Prora were highly ambitious. According to his ideas, it was supposed to be just a gigantic seaside resort, "the most grandiose one that ever existed", with 20,000 seats. The rooms were planned, small, but with a sea view, and the corridors and other utility rooms were to be located overlooking the land. Each had a rather spartan setting, but it had everything one needed: two beds, a wardrobe, and a sink. The architects of the holiday home planned Prora in such a way that it had all the modern conveniences. There were showers and toilets on each floor. The amenities were shared. There were also ballrooms on all floors. In the middle of the complex, the creators of the project planned to build another building, spacious enough to make a hospital in it, in case of war.
The war, unfortunately, really began before the construction of the resort was completed. Hitler's priorities have changed. Instead, he transferred all of Prora's workers to build a V-weapons factory in Peenemünde. Hamburg was subjected to very large-scale bombing during the war. Then the hotel became a refuge for a huge magic of people fleeing the bombing. Prora then became a refuge for refugees from eastern Germany. As the war drew to a close, female auxiliary personnel for the Luftwaffe were housed in the compound.
After the war, Prora was used as a military outpost for the East German army. After the reunification of Germany in 1990, part of it was used by the Bundeswehr Military Technical School, and then to accommodate asylum seekers in the Balkans.
Today, this grand hotel is empty except for a few blocks that were intended for other purposes. In 2011, one block was rebuilt and turned into a youth hostel with 400 beds. There are currently plans to turn Prora into a modern resort with 300 beds, tennis courts, a swimming pool and a small shopping center. Adolf Hitler had many grandiose projects, you can read about it in another our article. Based on materials
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