Destruction of Cities during WW2
I thought it might be a good idea to discuss the destruction of towns and cities in WW2. People use the word "flattened" pretty randomly and it is often a misconception. Bombing can of course destroy buildings, but most often roofs, blowing out windows, etc. Especially the bombs that the Allies were using, which were often phosphor bombs, which burned things rather than blowing them up. So, when you look at old photos of these cities, they can look pretty bad as all the roofs are gone, with some damage to walls of course. Reconstruction most often consisted of putting on a new roof, repairing the water and electric lines, replacing the glass. It certainly does not mean a city was "flattened".
I do read this comment rather frequently on this forum and even in guidebooks and it just is not true that cities were "flattened", except for maybe Dresden or huge sections of Berlin. I have yet to hear someone recommend not going to those cities because they are "rebuilt". How about London or Coventry or Munich? Any recommendations not to visit those cities either? No, I have never heard this fact mentioned. So why bring it up about just certain towns and cities here in Germany?
Wondering if folks think that all those lovely ruins in Rome were found all nice and intact? No, they put many of them back together from the rubble, the same way they put these historic German buildings back together. There are some buildings that are completely reconstructed to look like they used to, like the palace they are rebuilding in Berlin, but this is unusual.
Thanks for letting me rant a bit.
Jo
Frankfurt, Germany 2/7/10
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It's actually a pretty stunning reason to visit Rotterdam for example. (Which did literally get flattened in quite a few places.) But it's made some of the best and most avant garde architecture anywhere in the world (see Cube Homes), and the impact of the dichotomy of crossing a river or canal, and going from a 12th-14th-ish century city center, to 60 year and younger architecture.
It's artistically stunning... but also really sets in the impact of exactly what happened during those 6 horrible years (WWII).
I can't say I go to Munich for the new architecture, but it's definitely one of the 'unique' things that defines Rotterdam.
I have some sympathy for Jo's going on about this subject. Frankfurt is often given a pass simply because "it was completely destroyed" and has "nothing left that's original." It's a shame because Frankfurt actually has quite a bit to offer. In my own city, Vienna, I have learned to "read" the architecture. In most spots, if the fine old baroque architecture is suddenly replaced by a square block of ugly post war apartments, you can be sure that that is where the bombs fell. Vienna's famous St. Stephans cathedral had its roof burned off and windows blown out, but the structure was basically O.K. The roof has been beautifully and authentically replaced, but they have left in the rather sad post war windows, as a reminder, I suppose. The walls of St Stephans not only have nicks and gashes from WWII, but also there is still a canon ball imbedded in the exterior from the siege of 1683.
I echo the sentiment on Rotterdam. Worth visiting because, not despite of , the fact that it was completely rebuilt in a modern style.
I sympathize. But remember that most people travelling to learn a bit (not just relax) are looking for what is different from home. So Americans, with our brief history, are usually looking for what is old. That's no sin. There is little need to visit what we already have here. We have plenty of post-1940's architecture - some good, much of it bad. It's always nice when old buildings are painstakenly reconstructed - it's certainly better than the alternative glass cube. But a building that didn't have to be reconstructed is better.
We will be in Germany this summer for the first time and we are very much looking forward to it.
The Nazis blew up Warsaw on their way out. The old-town centre was rebuilt to resemble the way it always looked. But there are also lots of ugly post-War buildings in the surrounding area. There is a great book I purchased at the Warsaw History Museum that has photos of Warsaw pre-War, after War and then after being rebuilt. I always recommend people visit Warsaw, especially if they are interested in WWII.
A few months before I visited Warsaw I read Leon Uris' Mila 18. I loved the story so much and even though Warsaw was really flattened I could envision where the ghetto was and could locate some other landmarks. Rebuilt Warsaw is very nice but reading the book did make it more special for me.
In addition to being a good film, "The Third Man" shows late 1940's (~1948) views of the rubble in Vienna.
Thanks for this post, Jo. It was interesting, and I will think about it when I read about the destruction of German cities in the future.
The "Pity of it All" by Amos Alon is worth reading. what hasn't been flattened is Germany and its Nazi history which wiped out millions of good people. Strange that a nation that produced Bach could also produce Hitler and his supporters. I wouldn't spend a penny in Germany.
"Strange that a nation that produced Bach could also produce Hitler and his supporters...."
I get your point, but wanted to add that Hitler technically wasn't produced in Germany. We have to blame the Austrians for that (as well as a number of other top ranking Nazis).
I could say that it is strange that a country that produced Timothy McVeigh also produced Martin Luther King...
Just sayin.....
"Strange that a nation that produced Bach could also produce Hitler and his supporters...."
Or that a country that produced Martin Luther King could have also produced Lester Maddox, George Wallace, or Alexander Hamilton (The Confederacy is founded on the great truth, that the negro is inferior to the white man,...) Stephens.
Even stranger, a country that produced terrorist Menachem Begin could produce, ah, Yitzhak Rabin?
Wow, Barbara, but I guess I've run into Germans with attitudes like yours, too, so...
Jo, I agree, it just makes for interesting architecture contrasts!
An interesting day. Read this and then tonight on the local PBS, the American Experience program the subject was "The Bombing of Germany." If they were not flattened, there was much left standing around core cities and industrial areas in the few cities that came under relentless bombing.
The point that I am trying to make is that there are sections in all of these cities that got pretty trashed, but the biggest part of these cities were NOT flattened or wiped clean. Once you leave the industrial sections or the city centers where heavy bombing took place, all of the surrounding neighborhoods are still very original buildings. Cologne, Frankfurt, and Ostende are good examples. Beautiful buildings abound, street after street after street.
Barbara, those are about the harshest words I have ever read on this forum. I feel sorry for you that you have to carry such hate and bitterness around with you all day long. Doesn't that chip on your shoulder get kinda heavy after a while?
I always interpreted "flattened" basically as a slang word to describle bluntly the effects of the strategic bombing campaign with all its controversy on Germany.
The country that produced ML King, jr. also gave Bull Connor, Ross Barnett, besides Lexter Maddox (as pointed out above)...George Wallace recanted and repented.
And if you don't want to spend a penny on Germany, there are plenty of people all over the world who will do just that, the Spanish, Japanese, Italians, Americans, the nationalities of South America, Chinese, Polish, Indians, Russians, Australians, etc. etc.
The sad part of this is that most of the death and destruction came shortly before the end of the war and did nothing to affect the outcome. Rothenburg was bombed on March 31, one month before the German surrender. Würzburg was virtually destroyed by British bombers with 5000 killed, mostly civilians. Why did they do it; because they could (it was targeted because it had a lot of wooden building, that would burn). Freudenstadt, a peaceful village in the Black Forest was burned to the ground by French incendiary artillery.
Ron - I obviously do not know anything about what Germans think of Americans so I can't answer that question. As a Brit though I do find it interesting how little animosity there is between Germans and Brits. I certainly have never felt any bad feeling from Germans and I don't know any Brit who harbours bad feelings either (although they may make Fawlty Towers 'don't mention the war' style jokes!). Even the WW2 veterans I have met don't seem particularly bitter.
It's not only German towns and cities which were badly bombed during World War 2. London and many British cities were heavily damaged by German bombs, and places in Northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands were all bombed by the allies as part of the liberation, as were Polish towns like Wroclaw.
Wherever you find a lot of 1950s style architecture (Plymouth, Coventry, Brest, Cherbourg, Caen, Le Havre, etc) it is because these places were bombed during the war. Many residents of friendly nations were killed in this bombing. After the war, some towns and cities, especially in central Europe, were rebuilt in the original style, while places in the west were "modernised".
Apropos to Bob's post one of the questions on University Challenge last night was, paraphrased, "Which British city is twinned with Dresden, chosen due to their similar experiences during the war?"
I'll admit I didn't "know" the answer but it was quite easy to make a correct educated guess.
Not quite sure where Ron got his figures for Dresden, but even though the exact numbers are not known, most historians believe it to be around 25,000. Still a lot of dead people.
Visiting a concentration camp is very important for a lot of people. Sometimes it makes it clear how inhumane some people can be, how intolerant, how bigoted. These are good things for anyone to learn, not bad. Yes, they can be extremely sad and moving, but again, this is not a bad thing. School classes go there, people whose relatives died there, people who were locked up there go and revisit. If people don't go to these camps, at some point in history, they will become irrelevant and forgotten. This is something that should NOT happen.
I have met and spoken with 1000's of Germans in my over 2 decades here, both young and old. I would say most detest and hate hitler for what he was able to do to this country. Young Germans feel no more guilt for this, than most white people in the US feel guilty about slavery or the Native Americans or the Japanese that were interred in American camps. Older people recall the hardships and fears if they were young, but you really don't find a lot of German men that were old enough to be fighting in WW2, most of them are dead or in their 90's.
Jo, have you really been living in Germany for 20 decades :)?
duh, think I need new glasses! :-)) thanks, I fixed it now.
JO -- >>>If people don't go to these camps, at some point in history, they will become irrelevant and forgotten. This is something that should NOT happen.<<<
Absolutely right.
I've taken several small groups over. Each time, at some point in the orientation before we go, I'll be reviewing the itinerary and say "...and this is the morning we visit a concentration camp...". Someone will invariable say "What is our other choice? I don't want to see a concentration camp." I always answer: "No other choice. If you travel with me, you visit a concentration camp."
My grandfather is now 93 years old and was wounded, twice, in World War II. In 2002, when he was 85, he met a German World War II veteran while on a cruise to Alaska. He had also been badly wounded in the war. My grandparents spent a great deal of time with this gentleman and his wife over the next several days. My grandfather still speeks of their meeting very fondly, saying neither ever felt anger nor shame, rather they each agonized over how to prevent their great-grandchildren from ever experiencing anything like that.
Great topic, Jo. I appreciate your outlook on life, and appreciate your willingness to share that outlook with us.
As a reply to Ron, we recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Berlin airlift here at Dobbins Air Reserve base, to honor General Clay. The guest of honor was Gail Halvorsen, the "candy bomber." I recently heard a story about him on the radio, too, where he said he was tired of hurting people and wanted to help them instead.
On that same radio show, they told of an American pilot who walked into a Frankfurt cafe before the airlift, and all the Germans walked out. The same pilot went to the same cafe after the airlift started, and the Germans all walked to the bar and brought him back a stein. So, lucky for us now, our actions after the war did a lot to change the perceptions that Germans had of Americans.
The fact that Americans spent much more than just a penny to rebuild Western Europe after WWII is a very important factor in the existing peaceful relationships. The airlift to Berlin might have been the most visible part but the funds that poured in through the Marshall Plan were even more important. Yes, my mother will always remember the shrapnel inbedded in her neck that she received in a bombing in 1943 (the year she was born) and German and Canadian governments are paying her related health care bills to this day. But what she talks much more often about are the Care packages they've received after the war, how that first banana tasted, how it helped them to fight of starvation.
Wish they'd done something similar after helping to chase the Russians out of Afghanistan. And maybe, just maybe we would have seen different relationships today.
As to the definition of "flattened" I agree that it's used very generally. But not only industrial areas were targeted by bombing raids, train stations as well. And as tourists going to Europe today appreciate very much, most of these train stations are in very central locations. Thus bombing them resulted in heavy dammage of central areas of many cities, not just the well-known ones.
My mother's family did live in a rat-infested basement for years because there wasn't enough residential housing left after the bombing raids over the Ruhr - of course THE industrial heartland and priority target of Allied bombers.
Still, I don't think this statement is necessarily true: But a building that didn't have to be reconstructed is better.
Destruction has happened throughout history, not just during WWII. Even if you visit places that were spared during the 20th century they might have been rebuild after a medevial fire or after one of the many other wars. Many of the beautiful Gothic churches you visit today are reconstructions on sites of older churches.
And many visitors might not even recognize the difference between a building that is "original" or one that has been carefully reconstructed.
A very interesting example of a reconstructed city is Muenster. The "Principalmarkt" has only one building that was reconstructed in the original style, the Rathaus. But the rest was reconstructed in a more simplefied way. It works! This year, the city will tear down an entire stree in the city centre that was "flattened" in WWII and rebuild in a modern way. The new construction will not be a exact reconstruction of the "original" (which original? of which time period?) but one that fits in with the historic style of the city.
Last night, my local PBS station aired a documentary about the bombing of Germany during WW II.
Part of the Allied strategy was to inflict so much damage that fear would permeate through the German people and they would overthrow the government.
Unfortunately, the Nazis were so powerful and evil, they didn't care about the people. If any rose up to try to change things, the government would just have them killed.
I have a friend who was a little girl in Berlin when the war started. She said she remembered her parents being very careful about what they said and who they talked to, and if she--the little girl--said anything that would cause trouble, they'd shut her up quickly.
A few years ago, I met a young German man working in the U.S. as a journalist. The conversation somehow turned towards talking about WW II. He said he was tired of hearing about the Nazis and wanted to know why it had to still be talked about. I said your people have to talk about the Nazis the same way we have to talk about slavery--to make sure neither ever happens again.
And Lee, remember, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.
"As a Brit though I do find it interesting how little animosity there is between Germans and Brits."
I echo Laura's comment re lack of bad feeling. This thread made me think of Coventry the centre of which which was devastated. My father remembered that, when he was on firewatching duty in his home town, he saw the fires of Coventry from 15 miles away. But when the new cathedral was built, next to the ruins of the old one, it was dedicated to peace and reconciliation.
Coventry is twinned with Dresden because of their shared experience. My aunt was part of a church group that went to Dresden in the late fifties and early sixties to help with the recovery of the town.
I think it was Ronald Reagan who said this,
"I would remind you that terrorism in the defense of conservative interests is no vice. "And let me remind you also that terrorism in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
Maybe. I forget.
Are you trying to quote Barry Goldwater?
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"
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