The Daily Mail is reporting that a huge resort on the Baltic island of Ruegen was purchased this weekend for approximately $3.5 million and will be converted into a modern, up-to-date luxury retreat with a 400-room hotel and 400 apartments.
But this resort has some history—even some baggage—attached: The three-mile beachfront property, once called the Colossus of Prora, was built by the Nazi party in the 1930s over a six-year period before the worst of World War II began.
The building, the single-biggest sold in post-war Germany, was meant to provide holiday entertainment for 20,000 of Hitler's hordes at any one time. But not a single Nazi ever got to stay there: The last rooms were finished just as the war began in 1939 and Prora was left empty. The article calls the development "the greatest white elephant of all time."
After the war, it was occupied by the Red Army and became a top-secret Soviet base.
So far, there are a few luxury flats and a youth hostel in the buildings at the site, which is 120 miles from Berlin. Block One is nearly 1,200 feet long, and auctioneer Mark Karhausen reportedly juggled bids from least ten developers.
Nearly $8 million has to date been raised for the government in sales of parts of the Prora complex.
Photo of Prora courtesy of Steffen Löwe Gera.