The Prora Documentation Center provides information about the history of Prora and shows "MACHTUrlaub", the only permanent exhibition in Germany on the labor and social history of the "Third Reich".
The Prora Documentation Center is located in the historical complex in Prora, which was planned as a "KdF seaside resort on the island of Rügen". Prora belongs to the Baltic resort of Binz and is located on the Prorer Wiek, the most beautiful bay on the Island of Rügen. Here, the approximately 4.7 km long facility was built on behalf of the "NS-Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude" between 1936 and 1939 and almost completed in its shell. The complex has been a listed building since 1992. Next to the "Reichsparteitagsgelände" in Nuremberg, it is the largest closed architectural legacy of the National Socialist era. 20,000 people were supposed to vacation here at the same time. The "KdF-Bad der Zwanzigtausend" is not only an interesting example of the use of modernist architecture under National Socialism in terms of architectural history, but also an important testimony in terms of social history to the efforts of the Nazi regime to pacify the workers, whose parties and organizations had been crushed in 1933, and to win them over to its war, Lebensraum and race policies. Prora was intended to be both an expression of the proclaimed Nazi "Volksgemeinschaft" and a constructive element in creating it, and thus acted as a propaganda tool to stabilize the system. After the beginning of the war, police battalions were trained in Prora for a time, and some of these battalions went on to carry out drastic criminal operations behind the fronts.
In GDR times Prora became a barracks of the NVA and thus also a military exclusion zone, in the 80s also the largest Bausoldaten location. Bausoldaten performed military service without weapons and were subjected to hard labor and harassment.
The Bundeswehr initially took over Prora after reunification, but left it after only two years. After long disputes about the appropriate treatment of the historical site, a modern vacation domicile is now being built in Prora.
The Prora Documentation Center presents the permanent exhibition "MACHTUrlaub" with picture and text panels, audio and video stations, and shows a film on the history of the complex in continuous loop. Changing special exhibitions and events deepen the topics, guided tours on foot and by bike in the exhibition and in the grounds of the historic facility are offered. Projects, workshops, seminars and other formats are part of the educational program.
