At a staggering 4,5 km in length, Prora is a former holiday camp built from 1936 to 1939 by the Nazis. The structure is located on the Island of Rügen, just north of the German mainland in the Baltic Sea. Designed by Hitler-appointed architect Clemens Klotz, this massive outlay of concrete was meant to host 20,000 people for a strictly controlled vacation. But war interrupted construction in 1939. The „Colossus of Rügen Island“ was used as a military hospital and a refugee camp, before the Red Army took it over in 1945. Communist East Germany turned it into a military base. For almost 40 years, Prora served as a training camp for soldiers and officers. It was abandoned shortly after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
Prora (Latin), πρῷρα (Greek): the prow, the bow of a ship or a vessel.
