BERLIN // A gigantic Nazi-era hotel resort built on the orders of Adolf Hitler to create a happy German nation fit for war will start undergoing a wholesale refurbishment this year in a controversial project that historians warn will obscure the dark past of the site. The complex at Prora, on the island of Rügen just off Germany's Baltic Sea coast, stretches for five kilometres along a pristine sandy beach. It was built in the 1930s to accommodate 20,000 holidaymakers, but the outbreak of the Second World War prevented its completion.
Much of it has stood deserted for decades as a towering example of Hitler's ambition to control every aspect of the nation's life. The Nazis planned to cement their power by wooing the masses with affordable package holidays on an unprecedented scale, organised through their "Strength through Joy" tourism organisation. It was propaganda for Hitler's claim to be the sole guarantor of Germany's welfare.
The German government has tried for years to rid itself of the five remaining grey flat-roofed blocks, six storeys high and each 500 metres long, and finally managed to sell them to private investors and the Rügen district council in 2005 and 2006. Building work is set to start this year with the conversion of one block into a youth hostel. Other blocks are to be turned into hotels, apartments, shops, sports and leisure facilities, and there is a certain irony in the prospect that more than 70 years after its construction, Prora will finally serve the purpose the Führer had intended.
But the director of a museum at the site has complained that amid all the grand new building plans, its history is being forgotten. Jürgen Rostock said his Prora Documentation Centre, which explains the history of Prora and its role in Hitler's plans for war through original film and photographs, will be evicted from its current premises once the refurbishment starts. Mr Rostock said he has not been offered a suitable alternative location and that one possible new site suggested by an investor was too small to accommodate the museum, which had more than 80,000 visitors last year.
"I'm increasingly getting the impression that the investors aren't particularly interested in the history and would prefer to play it down," Mr Rostock said. "We've been told to get out when construction starts and that we'll be out on the street if we don't find anywhere else by then. "There's a noticeable far-right presence in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and if our museum is reduced in size or marginalised it will be a signal that the far right has gained ground."
The far-right National Democratic Party, which openly espouses some aspects of Nazi ideology, won enough support in a 2006 election to gain seats in the regional parliament of this eastern German state. Mr Rostock also accused the regional government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania of not taking enough interest in Prora's status as a historical monument. He said other German states, notably Bavaria, had shown far more support for museums at key Nazi locations, such as Hitler's Berghof Alpine retreat or the party rallying ground in Nuremberg. At both those sites, new and spacious museums have been erected with regional government funds.
A spokesman for the Mecklenburg government said Volker Schlotmann, the construction minister, would meet Mr Rostock this week to discuss the matter. He declined further comment. Other historians have also criticised the handling of Prora but admit that the sheer size of the complex makes it far harder to deal with than other Nazi sites around Germany. Prora's drab blocks look more like administrative buildings than a holiday camp, yet the design won an award at the 1937 Paris world exhibition for the idea of a mass tourist resort and for its modern architecture of steel-reinforced concrete.
Its construction began in 1936 and only the accommodation blocks had been finished by the outbreak of war. The planned festival hall for 20,000 people, two piers big enough for cruise ships, swimming pools with wave-generating machines, shops, school, power station, hospital and solarium halls with infrared lamps were never built. Instead of housing tourists, Prora became a temporary shelter for civilians who had lost their homes in Allied bombing raids on Hamburg and other northern cities, and then for refugees from Germany's eastern territories fleeing the advancing Soviet armies.
After the war it was taken over by the Soviet and then East German military and was out of bounds to the public until German unification in 1990. Since then, the buildings with their 6,500 rooms have increasingly fallen into disrepair. The area is largely unoccupied, save for a few low-budget restaurants, the museum and a ramshackle nightclub. Despite its historical significance, there is no denying that it is an eyesore that blights the landscape of an island famous throughout Germany for its beauty.
"This was always a difficult legacy for the island because it's so big and we're very pleased that something is being done about it now," said Kerstin Kassner, the head of the Rügen island district council. Ms Kassner denied that the refurbishment would mask the history of the site. "We've got the museum, and the buildings are under monument protection, which means they can't be removed and their appearance can't be altered too much," she said. The council is paying for the construction of the 500-bed youth hostel.
Mr Rostock said he does not know whether he will be able to realise his planned expansion of the museum. "We want to add a section that explains the terror of the Nazi regime and also add a forward-looking element that outlines present dangers," he said. "That would provide a comprehensive overview that I think would generate a lot of interest." dcrossland@thenational.ae
