For Sale: Vacation Condos With a Nazi Past

The vacation flats for sale in the German town of Prora, on the Baltic island of Rügen, featuring private saunas and sea views, can be had at a steep discount to similar properties nearby. The catch? They’re part of a dilapidated complex of identical, unadorned blocks built by Adolf Hitler to house 20,000 workers on Nazi Party-sponsored vacations.

Developers this spring began marketing apartments in the Colossus of Prora, as it’s known, for as much as €700,000 ($900,000) each. They’ve stripped the grimy plaster off facades, smashed through walls to create spaces big enough to appeal to modern tastes, and added balconies, wood floors, and glossy kitchens. “It’s better than letting the whole thing crumble,” says Uwe Heuer, a banker from Hamburg, as he tours a model apartment. “When I’m here I don’t think about the Nazi history.”