The longest ruins in Germany

The white cliffs of Rügen are a spectacular motif.

The weather in Southern Sweden got stormy and cold. So, we decided to take the ferry to the Baltic Sea coast in the former communist part of German. We left the ferry on the island of Rügen which is famous for its white cliffs. We could see them from the ferry when we approached the island. Immediately I was reminded of my art teacher who showed us a painting of the cliffs during a lesson. But the pollution during the last 200 years has done a thorough job: the white cliffs in the painting have turned grey. The joyous impression in the painting has faded and it feels like a grey and rainy afternoon. 

Art Deco building in Binz.

Besides the cliffs, the coast is well-known for its Art Deco sea resorts founded end of the 19th century when Germany still was a monarchy. We visited only one village and got an impression how it could have been a century ago, and what commercialization has done to it in the 20 years after the communist period.

Prora building up close

Far more interesting than the resort villages is a beach location called Prora. We walk on a white sand beach about 50m wide. The clear sea without kelp or algae on the left, sand dunes on the right and the horizon to the front frame the sandy stretch. We follow a path that cuts the dunes and lead to a narrow strip of pine trees behind the sand hills. After a few steps we leave the forest and face a 5-storey building that is hidden by the thick pine trees.

We look closer and see that most windows have no glass. The outside walls look greenish grey like they have suffered from much rain and wind. We look left. We look right. We cannot see the end of the building. Later on I will find out that the length of the building is nearly 4km, and was originally intended to be 4.5km! Nobody is around and suddenly we feel awkward.

How many flats are needed in the nowhere?

Memories of our trips to Johor state in Malaysia flash into my brain. We once drove along the Johor east coast during the monsoon season when a 20-storey apartment house appeared out of nowhere. A fence was still around it with a lonesome man sitting in a guardhouse. Though the windows had glass it looked very similar to the ruins in front of us. In Malaysia often construction projects run out of money when someone absconds or not enough apartments can be sold. When the cash flow ends, workers leave the site and leave behind an abandoned building site. In Germany this is very unusual because no one will start working until all the money is secured.

Indeed Prora is different. The project was started in 1934. The German Führer wanted to offer a perfect holiday place for his followers. As the Führer always planned in superlatives Prora was meant to host over 10,000 persons not far away from the villas of the rich aristocrats. The building actually won an architectural award during a World Exhibition in the 1930s, but it was never completed because another one of The Führer´s projects (World War 2) got more resources and put an end to this project.

After the war communist Germany inherited the nearly 4km long ruin. As the location was close to the border to Western Germany it was only used for military purposes. After the reunification the building was left in a bad state and nobody could live in it. It was again abandoned, because there was no business model to amortise the investments for upgrading the ruin to modern standards.

If you have any idea how to make money with 5,000 apartments in an area with one of the highest unemployment rates and a climate that allows sun-bathing for less than 3 months per year, please feel free to apply. You might not be the first because on billboard ads remodelled flats are priced at 600,000 € each, which is the price of a similar flat in Berlin, Munich or Hamburg.

I wonder how many people are willing and able to put this amount of money on the table.