The local has a dispatch from the Baltic strand of Rรผgen about designs to convert the colossal planned holiday-going compound of Prora, which stretches for 4,5 kilometers along the strait separating the Bay of Jasmund (Jasmunder Bodden - recently too elevated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site [DE]) from the sea, after many decades, back towards its original intent.
This ambitious feat of engineering and architecture, built from 1936-1939, had over twenty-thousand accommodations, theatres, dance-halls and a berth for cruise ships and was sponsored by the Third Reich's Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) programme as a rest-and-recuperation facility for military personnel. The KdF programme was also the original impetus, incidentally, to make automobile ownership possible for every citizen, sort of a people's car or a Volks Wagon. As the war escalated, resources were diverted and the Seebad Prora never saw a single guest. 
After the war, the complex was used by the East German military for billeting and training, and access for the public was restricted--the buildings' existence was virtually unknown during the DDR time and it still does not appear on many maps. Mostly, since--except for a bizarre and endearing museum installation in the central building, the place has been derelict. When we toured the Baltic in the Bulli last summer, we camped just outside of the monolithic shadows of Prora and had a great time on the fine beach and exploring the unspoilt ruins, untouched and undeveloped. I was a bit disappointed to read, already back then, of plans--placarded on the buildings themselves, to refurbish some of the units and offer them as vacation homes. It was a bit creepy, chilling I thought, to live there--but mostly I would not want to see the place over-developed and loose that austere and imposing isolation, even with surrounding beaches crowded. 
Now the state government has introduced a compromise measure, to open up the resort as a youth hostel. Many castles and fortresses here include a youth hostel on their grounds and rather than detracting from the historic character, acts as a curating influence, letting young people get excited about staying in the midst of such a place and keeping away the vandals that helped along the decline.
