In 1936 on the pittoresque Isle of Rügen at the Baltic Sea, Robert Ley - head of the German Labour Front - layed the foundation stone of the biggest non-military construction project of the Third Reich: The “Spa of the 20´000". This completely new seaside resort - also called a ´hotel´ fore it indeed consisted mainly of two extensive buildings along the waterside - was the prototype of ten further planned “spas" of this size. By this the Nazi leisure organization “Kraft durch Freude" (“Strength through Joy") intended the breakthrough of popular tourism without disturbing the established resorts of the middle and upper classes.
Although this megalomanic vaccation mill was not completely finished before the breakout of war in 1939, the plans and debates reveal characteristic features of modern tourism as well as on the Nazi social policy. These features shall be discussed under the headline of “fordism"; not only because this was the mighty paradigm of the 30ies, but also because the basic principles of fordism are still valid - irrespectively of the contemporary speech of post-fordism, post-modernism, and even post-tourism.