Saturday night down the Colossus.
The abandoned M3 Miami Diskothek is in a curious spot.
It’s not simply that it stands opposite the Baltic Sea, separated from the water’s edge by thin strips of pine forest and sand. And it’s not just that the sleepy German resort island of Rügen is an unlikely home for a Miami-themed nightclub.
No, those aren’t the reasons I can’t help but wonder what a Saturday night would’ve been like here. More intriguing is the building — or rather, the complex — it inhabits.
The “colossus” of Prora is a 4.5km long string of modernist blocks, originally intended by the Nazi state to be a jumbo holiday resort for up to 20,000 workers. Envisaged to be considerably larger, complete with a festival hall and swimming pool, it was never even finished, let alone used by holiday makers. Construction began in 1936, but halted with the advent of war.
It may seem an unlikely aesthetic for holiday homes, but the design actually won a prestigious award for affording every room a sea view, with only the corridors facing inland. The resulting thin, elongated construction is hypnotically illustrated by this film of the original plans in the on-site museum:
The buildings gained some usage as a military hospital during the war, but its longest tenants were the Soviet and then East German armies. They turned it into a barracks — a more apt function to many contemporary eyes. Following reunification, it became a listed building but one the German state didn’t quite know what to do with. One stretch did become a ‘Museum Mile’ and another the largest youth hostel in Europe. But the majority fell into disrepair.
After unsurprisingly failing to sell the whole structure to a single buyer, the government eventually sold individual blocks separately to developers. They are now one-by-one turning them into — of course — holiday homes, only this time with spas and restaurants. I can’t decide if that’s ghastly or fitting. Either way, it’s certainly produced interesting results. As the colossus is in truth one continuous structure, the piecemeal nature of this redevelopment creates repeated jarring juxtapositions between the abandoned and the faux luxe.
One sight that jumps out at you today are the enigmatic traces of the now-evicted museums and gallery. A good example are the faded banners proclaiming ‘German angst’, ‘German soul’, ‘Coziness’ and ‘One can not hide Prora’.
But more than anything else it’s the nightclub that gets me. I can’t find out when M3 Miami opened, but it only closed in 2016, apparently due to the death of its owner. He must have been well liked, for M3 Miami’s official Facebook page cover photo laments “Thanks Peter! We will never forget you”. Peter is featured holding a small, attractive dog.
The writing may have been on the wall for M3 for some time before Peter’s passing, though. I may be intrigued by what partying inside the colossus was like, but further exploration of Facebook suggests not that many opted for the experience. Indeed, Mostafa chose not to recommend M3 on 18 November 2015, asking ‘why were there so few people here last Saturday…?’
And yet, for Christian Shultz at least, part of M3’s appeal was exactly that relative unpopularity.
Such an intimate clientele would have been ultimately tricky for M3 financially, as it needed to fill five floors plus a large outdoor space. This largesse also stretched the Miami theme, with a geographically curious mashup of floor names including ‘Underground’.
Today, the closest you’ll get to being there for that heyday is by visiting the surviving Prora museum next door, which has co-opted the main dance floor. However, it’s clear they don’t know how to fill it either, using it only for a few photos and a small model. There’s no mistaking that Manhattan skyline, though.
Leaving M3 and the colossus to walk the 150 meters to the beach, it suddenly occurs to me this should’ve been the perfect location. Limited alternative nightlife options, an on-site youth hostel, few residential neighbours, and a nearby nudist beach — what could go wrong?
Well, something did. And Rügen must be worse off for it. During my few nights there, I repeatedly asked strangers aged between 16–40 where you go out on the island.
Their answer was often the same — you don’t.
RIP M3 Miami.
More info:
- In 1990, the barracks was the site for Angela Merkel’s nomination as a candidate for the Bundestag.
- The colossus is a highly unusual example of the Nazis building modernism, as generally speaking they ideologically rejected it in favour of traditional or classical forms.
- The largest youth hostel in Europe closed down in 1998, but a new one opened in 2011. So you don’t have to rent one of the many Airbnbs in the redeveloped blocks to spend a night at the colossus.
- Someone told me that during the 90s locals used parts of it for kindergartens and community spaces. That sounds super cool but I’ve failed to corroborate it online.
- Curiously, there’s a 4,000sqm sand sculpture exhibition nearby.
