Prora is one of the strangest buildings in Europe: a single Nazi-era holiday block 4.5 kilometres long, running parallel to one of the best beaches on the Baltic. It was never completed, never used as intended, and stood half-abandoned for nearly seventy years after the war. The eight blocks are now in various stages of conversion — some to apartments, some to a youth hostel, one to a museum that explains the project and its propaganda intent.
The contrast is the point. From the beach side, Prora looks like ordinary postwar accommodation, deck chairs and beach baskets lined up along the sand. From the inland side, you see the bare scale of it: identical balconies running to the horizon, all built to a single Nazi vision of leisure.
The Prora Documentation Centre and the Prora Zentrum museum in Block 3 are the places to go for the full story. Several blocks are off-limits, awaiting conversion or demolition.