Prora

[spospe]

Because it impressed us, I am posting a few pictures of the KdF (Kraft durch Freude - Strength through Joy) building at Prora on the the Island of Rügen, Germany.

 

The building is 3 miles long in total and was to provide 20,000 workers of the Nazi state with accomodation during their holidays on the Baltic coast. It was used post-war by the East German army as a barracks and training facility and is today being slowly developed as a museum and Youth Hostel (with about 19,000 spare places!)

 

We found the old DDR an interesting place and the highlight of our trip was a 2 hour guided tour of Colditz Castle which showed some of the routes used by PoW's as they made their escapes during WWII.

 

Edit: sorry for the large size of the pictures which has caused the text to scroll over the page, but it was impossible to show the panorama view with any degree of clarity with a smaller size (even now it is too small to do the subject real justice).

[lennyhb]

We spent 3 weeks on Rugen & Usedom in 2009 Prora is very impressive we spent several hours walking up & down the coast by it, a shame the museum only depicts it during the Russian years when it was used for training. Stayed at the Sellplatz near there that was a Russian Army truck driving school.

 

Went to Colditz in 2007 & 2008 in 2007 it was not long after they had started the renovations and we found it much more interesting by 2008 they had demolished the WW2 building in the courtyard painted all the buildings white & made it all pretty loosing a lot of it's character.

 

We much prefer the eastern side of Germany the natives are very friendly to tourists as they don't get that many. Language can be a bit of a problem as their second language is Russian.

[malc d]

lennyhb - 2011-07-12 2:29 PM

 

We spent 3 weeks on Rugen & Usedom in 2009 Prora is very impressive we spent several hours walking up & down the coast by it, a shame the museum only depicts it during the Russian years when it was used for training. Stayed at the Sellplatz near there that was a Russian Army truck driving school.

 

Went to Colditz in 2007 & 2008 in 2007 it was not long after they had started the renovations and we found it much more interesting by 2008 they had demolished the WW2 building in the courtyard painted all the buildings white & made it all pretty loosing a lot of it's character.

 

We much prefer the eastern side of Germany the natives are very friendly to tourists as they don't get that many. Language can be a bit of a problem as their second language is Russian.

 

 

Lenny

 

I don't the the Prora building actually has much of a history to display because I understand that Adolf and Co never actually got round to using it as a holiday centre.

Seems to have spent an awful lot of time empty.

 

 

 

 

[spospe]

I endorse Lenny's remark about the locals in the old DDR being friendly, they do seem much more outgoing than the average 'west' German. Normally when we are out walking and we meet locals on the beach, or countryside, a nod, or 'Guten Tag' is all we get. In the east however it was quite obvious that the locals were much more prepared to stop and ask directions (from us!), query the weather forecast, or just ask the time etc.

 

One thing that we also noticed, especially on Rügen was that country roads seemed to be narrower than in the west.