The German government will try next month to auction off part of a 10,000 room hotel complex built by the Nazis as a holiday resort for soldiers and workers. Adolf Hitler commissioned the holiday camp at Prora on the Baltic Sea island of Rügen in the 1930s as part of the Nazis' "Kraft durch Freude" ("Strength through joy") program to create a healthy, strong nation capable of conquering the world. The outbreak of World War II meant the building complex, which stretches over 2.5 kilometers, was never opened as a hotel. The eight austere concrete blocks were used as a shelter for bombed-out refugees during the war and as barracks afterwards. The opening price in the auction is just € 125,000 as authorities have tried unsuccessfully to sell it for over a decade.
Smaller hotel business on Rügen fear that outside investors could turn the Nazi holiday camp into a massive hotel with up to 5,000 beds, thus bringing down prices in other places, too. A museum spokesman said the area's Nazi past need not be an obstacle to future projects, as it had been the Nazi regime that was evil, not the building itself.
The site has been declared an official monument and is now protected from demolition.
