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Posts tagged with Berlin

Death of the Kabarett Wintergarten
2024-05-17 18:45:00 UTC
‘Step into the roaring twenties and experience the vibrant nightlife of Berlin’s Central Hotel and Wintergarten’ The Wintergarten was one of Berlin’s best-known variety theatres (“Varieté-Bühne”) located in the heart of the city, a popular destination for locals and tourists alike. Owned by Hermann Gebers, this…

The First Raids On Berlin
2023-08-30 18:02:00 UTC
‘Our numbers were small and there is no claim that much damage… resulted from our bombing but it’s very likely these raids had a consequential effect; triggering a most profound change of strategy by the enemy.’ Photo: 115 Squadron Association/ Scottish Saltire Aircrew Association. On the 83rd anniversary of…

Luftangriff – 1 September 1940
2022-09-02 10:45:00 UTC
‘Berlin has Alarm in new R.A.F. raid’ ‘British Formation Reported Broken Up at Elbe Before Reaching the Capital.’ – The New York Times, Sunday, September 1, 1940 – Photo: ullstein bild. On the night of 31 August / 1 September, 1940, RAF Bomber Command aircraft overflew…

Weltkriegsbombe am Ostkreuz
2022-08-23 10:11:00 UTC
Last Thursday (August 18, 2022) an 500 kg US unexploded aerial bomb - most probably an AN-M65 - was found in Berlin-Friedrichshain during excavation work at a construction site at Persiusstraße Ecke Bödikerstraße, near Bahnhof Ostkreuz. This #WWII dud has been successfully defused by the city’s specialist explosives…

Einmannbunker at Tempelhof
2022-05-24 15:41:00 UTC
Tempelhof’s BWSWe were ‘revisiting’ some colour footage taken in the Flughafen Tempelhof area some minutes after a 1944 air raid when we noticed, just before the end of the video, a clear example of a BWS (Brandwachenstände) or ‘einmann bunker’ in Berlin (see our previous post about…

British third raid on Berlin
2022-04-03 14:56:00 UTC
‘Two nights later we returned to Berlin… …to be met by numerous searchlights and well directed and intensive flak. The raids must have destroyed the myth of German invincibility, thus causing considerable anger to Hitler and Goering who had boasted that such raids would never happen.’ – Squadron Leader Andrew…

Der Hansaplatz-Bezirk
2022-03-14 15:31:00 UTC
[Severe devastation can be seen in this aerial picture of the northern Tiergarten and Hansaviertel district after the war, taken in winter 1945.] Photo: Senatsverwaltung für Bau- und Wohnungswesen Berlin Luftbildstelle. Located in the northwestern Tiergarten, the Hansaviertel was built from the intersection of three main streets in a star-shaped…

Bomben auf die Kottbusser Straße
2021-11-30 11:51:00 UTC
The photogallery we shared here show the damage inflicted by RAF Bomber Command air raid on the night of 28/29 August 1940 on Berlin, all captured in the Kottbusser Tor area within Berlin-Kreuzberg district. These pictures were taken on the following days of this second bombing, an air attack which…

Bombing raid on Berlin
2021-05-02 18:01:00 UTC
‘Aircraft drawn from two R.A.F. squadrons made a special attack on an objective only four miles from the centre of Berlin early yesterday morning’. – Daily Herald, Friday, August, 30, 1940 – Photo: © IWM CH 10246. As we have seen in previous posts, the first bombing on Berlin by…

Steglitz • Der erhängte Soldat
2019-11-02 18:53:00 UTC
[Photo: SZ Photo/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo.]. During the last days of April 1945, when the ‘Thousand-Year Reich’ was crumbling in ruins and blood, in most cities and towns were terrible scenes and murders. One of the most repeated scenes found by the victor Allied troops was the execution of German soldiers…

James-Simon-Galerie
2019-08-29 18:37:04 UTC
There is a new building at Berlin Mitte This city is in continuous development and innovation and the past of time is changing the capital, further away from the wounds suffered during the 1939-45 war. The new James-Simon-Galerie, designed by David Chipperfield Architects serves as the new entrance building for…

Bombers over Berlin!
2019-05-20 09:43:00 UTC
‘Bombers over Berlin, London… …while Hitler’s bombers were making another raid on the London area early today, R.A.F. bombs shook Berlin.’ – Daily Mirror, Tuesday, August 26, 1940 – Photo: Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung (00011855). So far in the war, Berlin has not been attacked; there have been…

“Back from Berlin”
2019-05-02 20:04:32 UTC
‘The sporadic raiding of London towards the end of August was promptly answered by us in a retaliatory attack on Berlin. The War Cabinet were much in the mood to hit back, to raise the stakes, and to defy the enemy. I was sure they were right…’ – Winston S…

Big X!
2019-03-24 19:49:00 UTC
• THE GREAT ESCAPE •Tonight marks the 75th anniversary of the famous ‘Great Escape’, the massive jailbreak from a German prisoners camp by Allied airmen in Poland [Squadron Leader Richard Churchill, RAF bomber pilot, seen here through the entrance of one of the three tunnels digged. He…

The Opera - Hitlers favourite
2018-12-29 22:37:56 UTC
If there was a building at Berlin favourite for the Führer that was the Opera… Its importance and history, its location in Berlin Mitte in the middle of Unter den Linden Avenue, and its musicians, made it a symbol of the city. A symbol raised to the altars by…

This is Berlin!
2018-10-14 19:10:03 UTC
In the last years Berlin city has undergone a radical transformation, with an influx of money from public institutions and private companies, far away from the cold days of the German reunification in 1990. This has benefited in the architectural modernization and services improvement for its inhabitants but in contrast…

Bombensturm! (Part III)
2018-06-12 21:51:42 UTC
MC Bombs: [Armourers from No 97 Squadron preparing MC-bombs on their trolleys to be loaded onto a Lancaster bomber on July 1943 at RAF Waddington.] The limited and inadequate arsenal of bombs composed of the high explosive GP (general purpose) bombs (10-15% detonation failure rate) made British Bomber Command to…

Feuer!
2018-04-23 19:53:04 UTC
Fire, as Bomber Command well knew, was the biggest destroyer of property On 23 September 1941, Britain’s Air Staff produced a report detailing the effectiveness of German incendiary attacks on Britain and recommending that fire be a central feature of Bomber Command attacks. The key lesson to be…

Bombensturm!
2018-03-18 20:20:39 UTC
When British Bomber Command went to war in 1939 it found itself equipped with a very limited and inadequate arsenal of bombs. General Purpose GP Bombs: The high explosive GP (general purpose) bombs, developed from 1935, were the initial arsenal Bomber Command had to carry destruction to Third Reich soil…

The Whitley
2017-07-12 10:09:31 UTC
The Armstrong Whitworth Whitley was one of the three ‘strategic’ bombers types with which Britain went to war in September 1939. The Whitley was conceived as a night ‘heavy’ bomber and was RAF’s first monoplane bomber and the first one to penetrate on Germany airspace. With a crew of five…

The Flying Suitcase
2017-06-01 15:05:31 UTC
One of the three bombers types beside Wellingtons and Whitleys which participated on the first British attack over Berlin in August 1940 was the Handley-Page Hampden, model HP 52. [A two-ship formation of Handley P Hampdens from No 44 Squadron RAF over England.] [Photo: LIFE images.] That first night…

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