The Colossus of Prora may sound like a piece of ancient history, but don’t be fooled by the name. This giant of a building (originally the longest in the world at a massive 4.5km) was built on the holiday island of Rügen by the Nazi party between the two World Wars.

Prora was planned to be an all-inclusive resort on an unprecedented scale, a new kind of tourism for the masses with 20,000 beds. It was the prototype of a handful of mega resorts intended by Adolf Hitler to create a nation of ‘people with strong nerves’, so they wouldn’t fail in a fight.

You can see why this location on the causeway-connected island of Rügen was chosen. The 10km beach here is of magnificent silky white sand, and back in the early 20^th century it was already attracting elite holidaymakers, who built themselves handsome villas in the fashionable spa settlement of Binz, at the beach’s south-eastern end.

Prora, however, was intended for the masses, but it never opened. It was just nearing completion when World War II broke out, and after Germany’s defeat it was garrisoned by Soviet troops, who blew bits of it up, for fun. The Stasi, the secret police, took over the remains for a while, and then for many years it was left to fall apart, shrouded in trees.

But now this sleeping giant has been reborn. In the course of the past decade, the five blocks still standing of the original eight have become a mix of hotel, youth hostel and luxury apartments.  Today, serried rows of glass balconies glint in the sun, each six-storey block slightly different to its neighbour, extending into the distance as far as the eye can see. Swimming pools sit out front, and at its road-served back, there’s newly-planted saplings and an endless repetition of protruding stairwells every 50 metres. There are a couple of spa hotels – the Dormero and the Solitaire – and a sprinkling of coffee shops, restaurants and a supermarket in the centre.

There is, however, very little reference to the building’s history, apart from in the dowdy looking Documentation Centre, where the exhibition MACHTUrlaub (‘make holidays’) fills in the detail. Here you learn how the centralised design was such that guests would have had to walk as far as 2.2km through the interconnected buildings, carrying their luggage, to reach their rooms. And how the daily programme would have included parades and communal games which may not have been described as compulsory, but there would have been informers amongst the holidaymakers, noting the non-participants. It was a matter of ‘have fun, or else’.

Along the shore

The beach itself is serenely unchanged since Prora was conceived, apart from lavish new (slightly military-looking) lifeguard posts, and regular signboards announcing ‘textilfrei’ stretches. During the post-war GDR times, FKK or Freikörperkultur was a big deal for people who wanted to experience some sense of freedom in the face of an unduly repressive state.

The original resort of Binz itself remains a period piece. The sand is demarcated with neat ranks of Strandkörbe, wicker beach chairs, which can be rotated to face the sun whilst turning their backs to the wind. There’s a pier, a bandstand outside the grand Kurhaus, and a shaded shoreside promenade that is lined with stalls selling trinkets and Milchreis, rice pudding with fruit puree.

Inland, villas of distinctive Bäder architecture, a mix of art nouveau and Long Island clapperboard, line its streets behind white picket fences with their ornate wooden balconies, rooftop gables, octagons, lanterns, and domes. Once private properties, with staff, they are now mostly sub-divided into apartments.

Binz is no longer a posh place for holidays, although the key activities are still the same:  a steamer still runs from the end of the pier to the chalk cliffs of the Königsstuhl, or King’s Chair, which were memorably painted by Caspar David Friedrich, the 19^th century Romantic landscape painter who played a big part in making Rügen popular.  And the ‘Raging Roland’ steam train still weaves its way along the coast to subsidiary resorts of Sellin, Baabe and Göhren, chugging past allotments and through thin forests of oak and beech, dappled with sunlight and laced with footpaths.

Nuremberg is a city with a long and illustrious history. It was the unofficial capital of the Holy Roman Empire, hosting the Imperial Diets, and was a major trading centre on a number of pan European trade routes. However all this has been rather overshadowed by the city’s more recent past when Germany was governed by the Nazi Party.

Precisely because of the association with the Holy Roman Empire and its rail links with the rest of pre-war Germany, it hosted the first Nazi Party Rallies in 1927 and 1929. These were rather small-scale affairs, as the party had yet to come to national prominence. However the rally that took place here in 1933, after the Nazis had come to power, was the first of what were to become increasingly grandiose events.

The Nuremberg Rallies subsequently took place each year until the start of World War II and were a huge part of the Nazi propaganda machine. Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous Triumph of the Will, which depicted Hitler as a Messiah coming to save Germany, was filmed there during the 1934 Rally. The following year the Reichstag was convened during the Rally to pass the laws which removed German citizenship from the Jewish population, known as the Nuremberg Laws.

The size of the whole complex, known as the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, which was designed to last for 1,000 years, is truly breathtaking. It comprises the Zeppelin Field, the Kongresshalle and the Große Straße (Great Road)

The size of a dozen football pitches, the Zeppelin Field is where Hitler delivered his speeches to hundreds of thousands of his supporters. It is possible to stand in the exact same spot on the tribune and take in the same view as he had.

The Kongresshalle is the biggest remaining building left from the Nazi period and is listed for its historical significance. It was never properly completed but the North Wing now houses the excellent Nazi Documentation Centre which charts the rise of the party and how it maintained its grip on power. The permanent exhibition Fascination and Terror looks at the causes and consequences of national socialism.

Between these lies the Große Straße which was designed to act as a parade ground for Wehrmacht soldiers, but was only finished in 1939 as war broke out and was never used for its intended purpose. Symbolically it is directed towards Nuremberg’s castle to highlight the link between the Holy Roman Empire and Third Reich.

Other parts of the site were either destroyed by intensive Allied bombing or were demolished after the war. Some, such as the Deutsches Stadion (German Stadium), which was designed to hold 400,000, never made it much beyond the planning stages.

Downtown

Nuremberg has a somewhat ambivalent attitude to these close links with the most notorious period in German history. For many years the city authorities were loath to spend the money required to maintain the complex, which was hardly a source of civic pride. However 250,000 domestic and foreign tourists visit the Rally Grounds every year and those numbers are hard to ignore. As a result a major programme of restoration was agreed by the city and federal government.

With the educational nature of the Documentation Centre and the rather eerie atmosphere around the Zeppelin Field and tribune, a good balance has been struck between preserving Nazi monuments and using them as a means of ensuring the horrors and megalomania of that period are not forgotten.

The sheer size of the Documentation Centre and Rally Grounds means that their location is very convenient, sitting just south of the city centre. Many visitors to downtown Nuremberg find plenty to do in the form of the castle, the Altstadt, the museums and of course the Palace of Justice, which hosted the post-war Nuremberg Trials. In addition, Nuremberg’s Christmas market is one of the most celebrated in Germany. – Mark Arrol