PRORA, Germany—On a 2.8-mile stretch of sundrenched coastland in this small seaside town stands the remains of what was once among the Nazis’ most ambitious construction projects: Prora. The sprawling complex of nearly identical buildings was envisioned as a working-class vacation spot for up to 20,000 people before the regime put the project on hold in 1939. 
 
 Now, after decades of decay, the site operated by the Third Reich, the Soviets and the East Germans over the years is being converted into hotels and apartments. The... ||||| Built by the Third Reich in the run-up to the second world war, the resort at Prora, on the island of Rügen, Germany, was a Nazi vision of tourism. Happy, healthy Aryans would stay and play at the 10,000-room complex on the Baltic sea, eating, swimming and even bowling for the Führer. Think Hitler’s Cancun. 
 
 But 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the complex nicknamed the Colossus of Prora is part of a growing debate in modern Germany that pits commercialism against Vergangenheitsbewältigung – the German word for how the country should come to terms with its dark past. 
 
 Blocks of six-story buildings stretching for 4.5km went up before war slowed construction, leaving an unfinished hulk that was later retrofitted into training grounds and housing for East German soldiers. But a group of investors in this seaside town is now doing what the Nazis never could: realising the site’s final stage of transformation into a vacation wonderland. Large parts of the complex are being gutted and rebuilt into developments, including one called New Prora that will house luxury beachfront condominiums – half of which have been sold – as well as an upscale hotel and spa. 
 
 But it’s not just the cashing in on a major Nazi landmark that troubles opponents. In a sense, some argue, the renovation is also fulfilling the Third Reich’s initial plan to turn the colossus into a massive tourism hub. In promotional material, developers are praising the original project – whose design is believed to have been chosen by Hitler – as a “world-famous monument” recognised in its day for “award-winning architecture.” Critics say their plans also may wash away many of the elements that provided the reason for preserving the colossus in the first place. 
 
 “These are not harmless buildings,” said Jürgen Rostock, co-founder for the Prora documentation centre. “The original purpose for Hitler was the construction of (a resort) in preparation for the war to come. This way of dealing with the building trivialises it and affirms the Nazi regime.” 
 
 The facades of some blocks, for instance, are being brightened by dozens of quaint sea-facing balconies, changing the nature of the imposing, austere architecture that stood as a monument to insatiable militarism. In addition, the one documentation centre at the site explaining the Big Brother-esque Strength Through Joy program – a Nazi effort to provide affordable fun to workers living the National Socialist dream – may be moved to the fringes of the complex and away from moneyed vacationers or, some fear, abandoned altogether. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Prora resort is earmarked for redevelopment as holiday apartments, condominiums, a hotel and a spa. Photograph: Stefan Sauer/Corbis 
 
 Recriminations of the Third Reich are far and wide in modern Germany, with war-era crime history taught from elementary school onward and a pacifist national identity built largely on a rejection of the past. The Prora project highlights the always-thorny question here of how to deal with the most tangible relic of Germany’s troubled past: Nazi architecture. 
 
 In the years after the war, some Nazi-era structures were preserved as monumental testaments to an inhuman regime, while others were pragmatically transformed into offices, army barracks and spaces for other uses. The Berlin stadium built for Hitler’s 1936 Olympic Games is now home to the Hertha Berlin soccer club. The Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus – former home of Hermann Göring’s Ministry of Aviation – now houses a branch of Germany’s finance ministry. 
 
 Yet opponents in some circles – particularly historians and Jewish groups – are growing increasingly uncomfortable with projects that smack too much of commercialisation or appear to slight history. In Berlin, for instance, a lavish mall opened in September on the site of a former department store whose Jewish owners were dispossessed by the Nazis. 
 
 “The site has been redeveloped with abundant references to the glorious days of the department store’s best years, but without any display that references the fact that the original owners were forced to relinquish ownership and flee,” said Deidre Berger, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Berlin office. 
 
 In the mountainous Eifel region of western Germany, meanwhile, a former Nazi training ground is undergoing a $52 million facelift, adding a convention centre and observation deck. The facility’s website suggests a blend of historical remembrance and eco-tourism, bluntly stating, “We don’t consider leisure activities and taking a critical look at the history to be irreconcilable.” 
 
 After the preservation of so many former Nazi buildings, some argue that enough is enough, saying the time has come to either let them waste away or, in some instances, consider tearing them down. Septical historians, for instance, are questioning plans in Nuremberg to spend $100 million on the renovation of the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, where Hitler proudly watched marches of his goose-stepping hordes. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Promotional signs advertise luxury apartments. Photograph: Anthony Faiola/Washington Post 
 
 “My argument, and the argument of quite a few architectural historians, is: Why renovate such a monument?” said Norbert Frei, a historian at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. “One could also give it to a controlled decay. Leave it as is, and allow what will happen to it to happen. It’s in such bad shape that you have to do rather a lot to it. It’s almost like building it anew.” 
 
 Enter the Colossus of Prora. 
 
 The project was masterminded in the 1930s by Robert Ley, a top Hitler lieutenant. He led the Strength Through Joy effort, which was meant to be a cornerstone of the resort here. 
 
 At picturesque Prora, thousands of small, heated rooms facing the sea would recharge the minds and bodies of the German masses, preparing vacationers for life as the masters of Europe. They would enjoy communal meals and common entertainment areas in the embodiment of Nazi fun. 
 
 Yet the colossus never lived up to Hitler’s ambitions. Despite the importation of forced Polish labour to help build it faster, the resort became a low priority as the second world war raged. It was left unfinished and was briefly claimed by the Red Army before being redeveloped into barracks for use by the East German military. 
 
 After reunification, historic preservationists and other government officials made determinations that the colossus was too expensive and architecturally significant to tear down. So the government sold its various blocks to developers. A youth hostel opened in part of the complex in 2011. But the complex is now in the midst of a full-blown redevelopment, with the first owners of luxury holiday homes moving in over the summer. 
 
 Because the property is considered historic, the German government is effectively subsidising sales. Prices in the New Prora development, for instance, range from $100,000 to $1.3m. But buyers subject to German income tax can receive federal credits worth half the purchase price of a unit. 
 
 Gerd Grochowiak, managing director of one of the site’s developers, Irisgerd real estate, dismissed critics of the site’s redevelopment, saying he sees nothing wrong with commercialisation there. 
 
 After all, he said, the structure was “always about tourism, so it doesn’t have such a negative history.” 
 
 Stephanie Kirchner also contributed to this article 
 
 This article appeared in Guardian Weekly, which incorporates material from the Washington Post
– Almost 80 years after Adolf Hitler picked a design for a massive seaside resort for weary German workers to recharge their batteries, the Prora complex is finally popular. The mammoth Nazi-era complex on a Baltic Sea island is being redeveloped into apartments and hotels—and with the German property market heating up, buyers seem willing to ignore its tainted past, reports the Wall Street Journal. "I am happy to see that this building is being made into nice vacation apartments. It was always ruins," a buyer who plans to move in this fall tells the Journal. "The buildings were built in a dark, bad time. Now they are being transformed." The Nazis put the project on hold in 1939 and the complex, designed to accommodate 20,000 people, was used by the Soviet Union and the German military after the war before being left to decay for years. The transformation comes amid a wider redevelopment of Nazi-era buildings into residential properties, and although it has been dubbed "Hitler's resort," developers dismiss controversy around the Prora project. It was "always about tourism, so it doesn't have such a negative history," the director of one of the site's developers tells the Guardian, which notes that since the property has been deemed historic, the German government is subsidizing sales. (Archaeologists say they've unearthed a Nazi hideout deep in a South American jungle.)