Architecture

PRORA

Through the organisation Kraft durch Freude (KdF), 20.000 people should be able to spend their holidays on Rügen in the huge complex at the same time. After the beginning of the Second World War the construction work was stopped in 1939, because all capacities for warfare were needed. Around 1950 Prora became a military exclusion zone, the expansion and conversion of large parts of the torsos now called Prora into the most monumental barracks complex in the GDR began.

The "Colossus of Prora" is the core of the complex and originally consisted of eight identical blocks lined up along the Prorer Wiek over a length of 4.5 kilometres. Three blocks were destroyed between 1945 and 1949 except for a few segments. Five blocks with a length of about 2.5 kilometres remained, which were used for military purposes by the Soviet Union, the GDR and the unified Germany after 1945. After the withdrawal of the Bundeswehr, most of the buildings stood empty and fell into disrepair. Since 2004, the blocks have been sold individually and converted into residential and hotel complexes.