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Investor turning Nazi indoctrination camp into luxury flats goes bust

The Local Germany
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Investor turning Nazi indoctrination camp into luxury flats goes bust
Prora. Photo: DPA

A real estate developer that was renovating part of a massive Nazi-era holiday resort on the Baltic Sea to turn it into luxury accommodation has filed for bankruptcy.

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The developer who bought of Block 1 of the Prora building complex on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea has gone bust shortly before the completion of the project, the Ostsee Zeitung reported on Tuesday.

Roughly 90 percent of the renovation work on the 450 metre block had already been finished, the Ostsee Zeitung reports. The company, Wohnen in Prora Vermögensverwaltungs GmbH, had planned to construct 280 luxury private apartments and had already sold almost all of the properties. The most expensive properties in the building were reportedly sold for more than €1 million.

But the company failed to secure an extension on a bank loan. What will now happen with the building remains unclear.

The monstrous building was originally intended for up to 20,000 Germans as part of the Third Reich's so-called Strength Through Joy propaganda programme.

Recreation and hearty exercise would have been coupled with on-site ideological teaching to build loyalty to the Nazis and strong racial identity among the "Aryan" working class.

Building started in 1936 but halted with the onset of World War II in 1939, leaving a concrete skeleton known as the Colossus of Prora stretching 4.5 kilometres down one of Germany's most stunning beaches.

Under East Germany's communist state, the camp served as military barracks so secretive that they did not appear on travel maps.

The building lay empty for several decades after the end of the Cold War, but its prime location on a stretch of pristine beach made it hotly sought after by property developers.

Four of the five blocks which make up the 4.4-kilometre complex have already been bought by investors. Two other developers are vying to buy the fifth block.

Wohnen in Prora Vermögensverwaltungs GmbH explained to the Ostsee Zeitung that their project had gone bust due to unexpected delays in construction. The fact that the buildings are listed had complicated the renovation.

With AFP

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