Abandoned garden town Wüstrow on the coast of the Baltic Sea

Lost Places

Abandoned Places along the Coast of the Baltic Sea

In northeast Germany you still can find a number of abandoned places along the coast of the Baltic Sea.

Most of the places were established for military reasons by the german army during the Hitler regime. After World War II nearly all places remained in use by the Soviet Army or the german NVA. With the german reunification and the withdrawal of the soviet army many of these places fall into ruins.

Some places are now museums, others are going to be destroyed and converted into a golf resort and the rest is still in this condition today (or even worse…).

I have photographed these places for the german magazine GEO.

Wustrow

Abandoned garden town of Wustrow on the Wustrow peninsula, which was known for its military base during the Third Reich. German Wehrmacht officers and their families lived in the houses, and Russian soldiers were stationed there after World War II.

Wustrow

Verlassene Gartenstadt Wustrow auf der Halbinsel Wustrow. Jedes Haus hatte einen Garten u.a. auch mit Obstbäumen, die heute zwischen den Ruinen weiter wachsen.

Abandoned garden city Wustrow on the peninsula Wustrow.

Prora

View from the sea of the 500 m long Block 4 of the former Kraft-durch-Freude seaside resort of Prora on the island of Rügen.

Prora

View of the 500 m long Block 4 from the land side. The KdF seaside resort Prora was built during the Nazi rule in the Third Reich between 1936 and 1939.

Pütnitz

Aircraft shelter of the abandoned Pütnitz air base near Ribnitz-Damgarten. Built by the National Socialists in the mid-1930s and continued to be used by the Soviet Army after the end of World War II until 1994.

Abandoned airport Pütnitz., russian airplane MiG 21 in front of a aircraft hangar.

Abandoned airport Pütnitz, the original warehouse from the 1930s.

Verlassener Flugplatz Pütnitz und russisches Memorial der Helden des Fliegerregiment von Murmansk

Pütnitz

Football pitch next to the runway of the abandoned Pütnitz air base near Ribnitz-Damgarten. After the Soviet army withdrew, the site was largely left to itself.

Peenemünde

Russian MiG-17 fighter jet in front of the former power plant of the Peenemünde Army Experimental Station. Two complete different world views on one photograph.