From Kronos Media comes a pretty astounding montage of video showing Berlin in July 1945 — just two months after the Nazis lost The Battle of Berlin and Hitler committed suicide, and a month after the allies signed the Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany and the Assumption of Supreme Authority by Allied Powers.
The nearly 75-year-old footage shows a city in shambles. You see the wounded, and buildings reduced to piles of rubble. The Reichstag makes an appearance, as does the worn-out Brandenburg Gate, through which residents passed from British-controlled Berlin to Soviet-controlled Berlin. And mostly you see everyday people trying to get on with their lives. Most chilling is the final scene, where an aerial shot carries you over miles and miles of desolation. To see Berlin during an earlier, certainly better time, visit our 2013 post: Berlin Street Scenes Beautifully Caught on Film Between 1900 and 1914.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in May 2015.
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There was still a lot of damage there in the early 60’s when I served there.
Very dramatic.but you should post more dramatic footage of other countries they damaged too like London,Poland.Drama does’nt stop with Berlin.Nazis destroyed lots of countries too
They enslaved my then 15 yr old czech dad to dig out for 2 years the still spewing gas pipes of the bombed out buildings over there. The soldiers also just didn’t
tuck those young boys in at night.I’m taking about the NAZIS
No pity whatsoever at all. It deserves is. I’m hurt by the nowadays trend of representing nazis as heroes and sufferers.
I do have sympathy not only for Germany, but all of Europe. Not all Fascists were German and not all Germans were Fascists, yet everyone suffered at the Fascist’s hands. All countries of Europe had either a Fascist Party, even England, or Nazi sympathizers. The real enemy was not Germany, but ultra-right wing Fascism; a message that seems to have gotten lost in the last few years.
Yes, you can see the fascist on our campuses and in the halls of Congress. Trying to take away our of free speech and the right to defend ourselves. Like today, the fascist of yesterday were embraced by the elite and the intelligentsia. Trump is the Churchill of our time. He has sacrificed significant amounts of money and has been attacked viciously. You will know them by their fruits.
Germany got off easy. Considering the death, destruction, horror and pure evil Germany inflicted on millions this is trivial. Post war, during the war Germany didn’t suffer as much as the countries they warred against and deserved much more destruction and punishment.
Instead they were rewarded with rebuilding as a bulwark against Communist Russia, which whatever their own evil, also suffered from the Nazis
Got no sympathy with Germany whatsoever. Should have bulldozed the whole place down.take a trip to one of the many concentration camps and then see how much sympathy you have for Germany.
Well.….the British were the inventors of the Concentration Camp. The evil British empire went back to the captive nations and slaughtered and castrated as long as possible.
Antifica the new American Nazi party
More military age males in civilian clothes than I would have expected. Mostly at the extremes of the age range, but still.
Robert Bennett… The concentration camps in South Africa were to concentrate the Boyer civilians in one place.. They weren’t designed as death camps.. That honour goes to Germany finest… Yes there were deaths in the South African camps but that was mainly due to mismanagement and logistical problems but there wasn’t a politically driven death programme.. .. Yes we know the British made mistakes etc but to compare poorly run holding facilities to a oliticalky sanctioned death camp is a bit niaive.
My dad was in Berlin a couple of weeks after end of European war. Have some images but they do not portray as vividly as this.
Thanks for sharing. So informative.