The Armstrong Whitworth Whitley was one of the three ‘strategic’ bomber 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 in German airspace.
[An in-flight view of Whitley Mk.V T4131, ‘EY-W’ from No 78 RAF Squadron during 1941. Note row of bombs painted on the fuselage nose to indicate numbers of missions flown over the Third Reich.]
A twin-engined cantilever monoplane born from the AW23 design in 1936, and manned by a crew of five, early versions were powered by Armstrong supercharged Tiger engines but the definitive and most widely produced Mk V version had two more capable Rolls-Royce Merlin X engines. The Whitley had a maximum speed of 230 mph (370 km/h) at 16,400 ft (5,000 m) and was bombed with up to 7,000 lb (3,175 kg) of bombs in the fuselage and 14 individual cells in the wings.
Following the outbreak of war in September 1939, the Whitley participated in the first RAF bombing raid upon Reich territory and remained an integral part of the early British bomber offensive until the introduction of four-engined RAF bombers namely the Short Stirling or the Lancaster. Already an outclassed design when the war started, in May 1942 it was retired from first-line bombing sorties and relegated to training units and used on paratrooper dropping and glider tug role also.
This bomber equipped Bomber Command’s 10, 51, 58, 78 and 102 Squadrons, all from No 4 Group. At the start of the war with Mussolini’s Italy in June 1940, its long range (1,500 miles) made this bomber the unique choice to reach those distant targets, Whitley squadrons being sent to bomb Milan, Genoa and Turin factories and ports on several nights.
First time over Berlin (and the first British aircraft too) was a leaflet-dropping night sortie (‘nickel’) on October 1, 1939, when four RAF 10 Squadron crews dropped hundreds of thousand propaganda leaflets over the capital and other cities. Months later it participated, time dropping bombs, along with Hampdens and Wellingtons in the first British-attack over Berlin on the night of 25/26 August 1940. And during the next 6 months, the Whitleys would be on first line delivering bombs by night to the Reich capital.
[Artist Paul Nash made this watercolour and chalk drawing of Berlin’s RAF first attack from a set of photographs that Air Ministry sent to him. It shows an aerial view of four Whitley bombers in flight over a target area of Berlin. It was made in January 1941.]
With 1,814 Whitleys built, they flew a total of 9,169 operations with Bomber Command, with 9,845 tons of bombs dropped and 288 of them failed to return (3.10% of losses).
[An Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber being readied for another sortie over Germany. It belongs to No 58 Squadron and is seen at RAF Linton on Ouse dispersal.]
[The Nash and Thompson Type FN4 rear turret of an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber of No 102 Squadron RAF at Driffield, Yorkshire, 8 March 1940. It was armed with four ,303 in Browning machine-guns to protect the plane against night-fighters.]
[Armstrong Whitworth Whitley Mark V of No. 77 Squadron rests in the grass at Driffield, Yorkshire, April 1940. Notice how broad the wing was. The Whitley featured a large rectangular-shaped wing; its appearance led to the aircraft receiving the nickname “the flying barn door”.]
[Luftwaffe crews and German civilians inspecting the wreckage of Whitley bomber T4170 ‘GE-T’ from No 58 RAF Squadron. This aircraft, flown by F/O Jack Champness crew, was shot down near Westerwede, Germany in their way to bomb Berlin on the night of 14/15 November 1940. The Whitley was hit by flak from the 3./Flak Regiment 26; all five crewmembers were killed and buried at Worpswede until 1947. That night, Bomber Command lost 10 aircraft -the worst night since the war began.]
[A crew of No 78 Squadron, Royal Air Force, watch as engine adjustments are made to an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber Z6743 before they take off for a raid from Middleton St George, Durham.]
Berlin was also bombed by the Soviets, years before the final Red assault over the city in 1945.
Hitler invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the largest offensive in History at the time, and German forces quickly advanced through the vast steppe towards Moscow, the main target. As soon as 19 July, Hitler had issued his ‘War Directive No 33’, decreting the attack of Moscow by bombers of Luftflotte 2 in reprisal for the raids on Bucharest and Helsinki.
But “Klara Zetkin” —the Luftwaffe’s codename for Moscow- was heavily defended and the bombings were poor. After the Nazi attack of the capital on July 21/22, 1941, when the Germans dropped a total of 104 tonnes of HE bombs and 46,000 incendiaries for over 5 hours, Stalin ordered immediate retaliation against the Reich capital.
[The Kremlin under the attack of the Luftwaffe, July 1941.]
On the evening of 7August 1941, 15 Ilyushin DB-3T torpedo bombers of the Baltic Fleet operating from an island airstrip off the Estonian coast struck Berlin after travelling a distance of more than 600 miles (1,000 km). All returned safely. While the damage caused by the twin-engined bombers was negligible (each carried fewer than 1,000 pounds of bombs), the Kremlin propaganda machine was quick to trumpet the success of the raids.
[Berlin being bombed by Soviet airplanes in 1941.]
Later, at dusk on 10August 1941, a formation of VVS (Voyenno-Vozdushny Sili, or Red Air Force) Yermolayev Yer-2 medium bombers and 14 of Stalin’s prized four-engine Petliakov Pe-8 formed up over Pushkino Airfield in Leningrad for the raid on Berlin. The planes were to be joined over the city by two full squadrons of Ilyushin Il-4 bombers flying fromEstonia. Unfortunately for the Soviets, the mission was cursed with misfortune from the start, several Pe-8s had to abort due to engine problems and one of the heavily loaded Pe-8 crashed immediately upon take off. The bombing was a total disaster. More attacks followed, with minor damage.
[The big size Pe-8 four engined was the only strategic bomber built by the Soviets during the war, but the unreliability of her engines and low numbers built (93) made the bomber a failure in action.]
By late 1941, the Wehrmacht was so close to Moscow that Stalin was forced to forget strategic bombing, apart from a 100-bombers raid on 29 August 1942 (minor damage), until 1945.
[The Ilyushin DB-3 medium long-range bomber. During World War Two, 1,528 were built.]
[Yevgeny Preobrazhensky, Commander of the Soviet Baltic Fleet’s 1st Mine-Torpedo Aviation Regiment, and pilot Pyotr Khokhlov before leaving the aerodrome to conduct an air-raid over Berlin during August 1941.]
Naval DB-3s flew a total of 10 sorties over Berlin before their base at Saaremaa had to be evacuated in the face of imminent German capture. The final attack was made on the night of September 4-5. A total of 86 naval aircraft participated in the raids, of which 33 were reported to have reached Berlin, while others bombed secondary targets, including Stettin, Königsberg, Danzig, Swinemünde and Libau. Daylight bombing was even tried, but met with no success and was cancelled.
The Soviet bomb ton dropped over Berlin is less than 1% of the total for the Allies during Second World War.
[Berlin, July 1945. Four years later, Berliners (who survived the bombings and war) would see Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) much closer everyday. A vast painting portrait of the Soviet leader presided Unter den Linden next to Brandenburger Tor in the aftermath of the war, with a memorial and Red banners, at the exact point today is placed the big Christmas Tree.]
[Berlin, July 1945: one more view of Stalin’s portrait, this time seconds before you overpass Brandenburger Tor and enter Unter den Linden avenue. Note poster at right column to inform you are leaving the British sector.]
At night, Berlin first system defence was based mainly in the use of anti-aircraft searchlights (Flakscheinwerfer). Hundreds of them were positioned around- and in the city, and their task were to find and track enemy bombers, showing them to the anti-aircraft batteries at night.
[A German Flakscheinwerfer in action during the war.]
[Here, members of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) served as crew of one during their duty with Luftwaffenhelfer in Berlin Tiergarten in 1943. Literally “air force assistants”, the Luftwaffenhelfer service was posted from January 1943 to aid in the Defence of the Reich. The order called for drafting school classes with male students born in 1926 and 1927 into a military corp, organised by Hitlerjugend and Luftwaffe staff.
They were know as the “Flakhelfer-Generation”. Their average age when they were called up was sixteen and a total of about 200,000 served during the war, including females from Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM).]
The searchlights were based around extremely high-powered Carbon Arc lamps, and the German iused three types divided by the size and diameter parabolic glass reflector: 60 Centimetre, 150 Centimetre and 200 Centimetre.
In September 1940, Germany had 2,540 searchlights (60 cm and 150 cm). During the war, this number grew rapidly — by February 1944, this figure has raised to 13,748 searchlights.
[A British four-engined bomber (most probably a Lancaster) caught at night during an air raid over the objective, as viewed from an above fellow bomber.]
The silhouette of the bomber is clearly evident as German searchlights raised their light against the clouds and overcast, showing the sky as a bright screen. The white traces are a mix of searchlights and British target indicators (TI), flares dropped by the bombers to mark and illuminate the target.
This photo was taken over Hamburg, on the night of 24/25 July 1943 during the infamous “Operation Gomorrah”. That summer night, the RAFBomber Command created a perfect “fire storm” that engulfed the city and more than 50,000 civilians were killed.
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.]
That first night over Berlin, 46 Hampdens bombers from Nos 49, 50, 61 and 144 Squadrons were sent to attack the ‘Big City’. Of these six were lost, five through fuel shortage and one missing believed also to be from the same cause. Two of these losses were from 50 Squadron. The last raid a Hampden was dispatched to bomb the Nazi capital was on 21 September 1941. Over the period of thirteen months 20 Hampden raids were made averaging twenty six aircraft per raid. The largest concentration involved fifty aircraft and the smallest ten. During the period 34 aircraft were lost of which 23 (58%) were due either certainly or probably to fuel shortage. By contrast only seven were attributed to enemy action. 50 Squadron lost nine aircraft, of which seven were out of fuel, one shot down by enemy action and one through a forced landing due to engine problems. There were six fatal casualties and two POW’s. On a trip to Berlin a Hampden’s bomb load would equate to four 500-lb bombs plus some incendiaries. Its endurance with this load was just over ten hours.
[One of the six Hampden medium bombers lost the night of 25/26 August 1940 during the first bombing of Berlin by the British RAF was P2070VN-X from No 50 Squadron, seen here after forced landing.]
[They took off from RAF Lindholme at 21.58 hrs and after bombing Berlin it is believed that had to force landing due to fuel starvation near Lautersheim, Germany.]
At the outbrak of war, Bomber Command was equipped with 6 operational squadrons of Hampdens under No 5 Group. The Hampden made its combat debut on 3 September 1939 searching German ships off the coast of Heligoland. It was a twin-engined medium bomber, with a crew of four and a max speed of 247 mph (397 km/h) at 13,800 ft (4,210 m); the bombload was of 4,000 lb (1,814 kg) bombs. The newest of the three RAF bombers, the Hampden, was often referred to by aircrews as the ‘Flying Suitcase’ because of its cramped crew conditions.
The RAF took a total of 1,432 Hampdens, the last of which was delivered in March 1942. The bomber ceased operational service in October 1943, but was retired from frontline raids over Germany a yerar before due to the increasing power of Third Reich defences. Almost half of the Hampdens built, 714, were lost on RAF Bomber Command operations, with 1,077 crew killed and 739 reported as missing. German Flak accounted for 108, 263 Hampdens crashed because of “a variety of causes” and 214 others were classed as “missing”.
[A Handley P Hampden Mk. I of No 455 Squadron RAF in flight.]
[The instrument panel and flying controls of an RAF Handley Page Hampden, showing the almost impossible task of getting into the nose compartment. The bomber’s fuselage was only three feet wide, similar to a single engined fighter at the time, so the pilot was more or less stuck on his seat for the entire flight, sometimes up to 9 hours. Note the rear view mirror top of the front plexiglas panel.]
[The ventral rear gunner’s position in a Handley Hampden of No 106 Sq RAF at Coningsby, Lincolnshire, viewed from the starboard side. Operating the twin .303 Browning machine guns is Flight Lieutenant Chisholm, the Squadron Gunnery Officer.]
[British HP.52 twin-engined bombers near completion in the assembly line at Handley Page’s plant at Radlett, Hertfordshire during the first year of the Second World War. Handley Page would go on to manufacture nearly 500 of them and English Electric a total of 770 Hampdens, built under subcontract between 1939 and 1942].
In this British newsreel we see Viscountess Hampden christening at Radlett Aerodrome the latest type in the RAFBomber Command inventory in 1938: the Hampden.
[Video credit: British Pathé (FILMID:1658.28)]
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Source:
Aircrewremembered. 25/26.08.1940 No. 50 Squadron Hampden I P2070VN-X P/O. Robert D. Wawn. <http://aircrewremembered.com/wawn-robert.html>
Hall, Alan W. (2000). Handley Page Hampden and Hereford. Warpaint Series No 57. Warpaint Books.
Hill, Colin. THELASTFLIGHTOFAD730 Hampden Bomber of No. 50 Squadron RAF.Background to the Hampden and its Crew <http://www.ww2irishaviation.com/gravescj /chapter_2.html>
Middlebrook, Martin. (2014). The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book. Pen & Sword Aviation.
Ward, Chris. (2007). 5 Group Bomber Command: An Operational Record. Pen & Sword Books Ltd.
The Freya systems of the German early warning radars were highly successful, but they need another set to help in targeting air objectives.
Anti-aircraft targeting radars, or FuMG (from Funkmeßgerät, or radar) were not in service when the war broke out. From 1939, GEMA and Telefunken starting to develop more accurate radars with a more concentrated beam to firing accuracy of the heavy anti-aircraft artillery’s guns.
This radar, called the Würzburg FuMG 39 operated on 50 cm wave length and had a range of 25 km with a range accuracy of 25 m. A rotating dipole antenna and a pulsed radar was used. The rangefinder was provided with a cathode-ray tube screen (CRT). The distance and ranging data would be provided to a command and control system at a Flak battery. Twenty of these units were delivered by 1940 to the Ruhr area. By the end of the war, over 4,000 units of this and upgraded models (Würzburg D) had been deployed in Europe, making it the standard radar system with the Luftwaffe. They were manned by a crew of six.
[These photographs show a Würzburg FuMG 39/62 model T, seen with its wooden traverse plate.
This radar unit was set up atop the control tower of the FlakTurm at Berlin Tiergarten, in Zoologischer Garten and was on duty to track and control the AA guns which protect the western sector of the city. Note brush paint to camouflage the radar’s dish and Siegessäule (‘Victory Column’) at background. The women next to the radar were American WACs (Women’s Army Corps), examining the site after the war in July 1945.]
[Another Würzburg radar placed at the Tiergarten, apparently used by the Germans as traffic control unit at the improvised Ost-West-Achse’s landing strip during the last days of the Berlin garrison. Note the Siegessäule column in the background.]
[Two images of a German Luftwaffe crew manning a Würzburg at a radar site; the man in the foreground is moving the system on its lateral axis. He is looking into the range and bearing indicator in front of him. Behind, other crewmember operate the elevation crank of the radar housing while watching the elevation monitoring. These monitors are covered with weather protectors.]
[Photo: Muller W. Ground Radar Systems of the Luftwaffe 1939-1945. Schiffer Publishing, 1998.]
[Photo: Muller W. Ground Radar Systems of the Luftwaffe 1939-1945. Schiffer Publishing, 1998.]
[The control tower as viewed from the main Flakturm located at Berlin Tiergarten, in Zoologischer Garten. A Würzburg FuMG39T and a Würzburg-Riese (at left) can be seen atop of the roof. The Reich’s capital had three of these complex of towers to lead the AA guns, the one at the Zoo manned by the 123 Turmflakabteilung.]
In 1941, Telefunken followed up on their successful Würzburg system with a larger, more sophisticated set fittingly known as FuMG 65 Würzburg-Riese (“Giant”). Making use of the same conical-scanning system, the Riese was a much larger system with a 7.4 meter antenna and much more powerful transmitter that gave it a range of up to 70 degrees. Combined with the added accuracy afforded by the conical scanning system, the Würzburg-Riese provided the Luftwaffe with a long-range system capable of providing accurate enough information for gun-laying. with a range of about 60 km. This type began to enter service in 1941, and over the course of the war roughly 1,500 would be built.
[The massive FuSe65 Würzburg-Riese radar atop of the L-turm at Humboldthain in Berlin.]
Several types and improvements were developed by Germany during the war, increasing range and facing British radio countermeasures, being the Jagdschloßradarantenna-array the other great advanced unit. This system, called FuG 404, became operational in 1944 and it was very difficult to jam.Just 80 of them were built. With a detection range of 300-400 km, long range warning devices like this or the FuMG 41/42 Mammut radar unit (six or eight Freya switched together) detected enemy formations assembling over the North Sea prior move towards the Reich, alerting German defences for incoming air raids.
[A Jagdschloß type II at a German radar site located in the Danish coast.]
[The cathode-ray screen of a German Jagdschloss radar shows the RAF offensive on Berlin with approximately 400 bombers, on 30 January 1944. The circle constitute the 100 km range marker, the gap in top indicates ‘geographical north’.]
All German systems and radars were highly jammed by the British countermeasures chaff from the summer of 1943, named “Window” (known as ‘Duppel’ by the Germans), metal strips with aluminium foil. This obliged the Germans to improve their early warning system -the Kammhuber Line- and radar AI devices (airborne radar) with new frequencies and create new night fighting tactics.
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Sources and Bibliography:
Foedrowitz, Michael. (1997). The Flak Towers in Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna 1940- 1950. Schiffer Publishing.
Foedrowitz, Michael. (2007). Flak-Towers. By the author.
Funkmeß(ortungs)stellungen in Deutschland. Deutsches Atlantikwall Archiv <http://www.deutschesatlantikwallarchiv.de/radar/germany/rd.htm#Funkme%C3%9F>
Muller W. (1998). Ground Radar Systems of the Luftwaffe 1939-1945. Schiffer Publishing.
Zaloga, Steven. (2012). Defense of the Third Reich 1941–45. Osprey Publishing.
RADAR was the acronym for Radio Detection And Ranging, with the first sets being tested by British and Germans at the same time during the early years of the 1900s.
Its combat debut was during Second World War. It was an invaluable air detection aid whenever bad weather, darkness or the enemy’s action made impossible to track and locate an incoming raid. During the next years, RAF and Luftwaffe will play “cat and mouse” in radar procedures in the ensuing Bombenkrieg.
[This picture shows the GEMA complex and buildings, where the German radar was developed located at Berlin. In 1940, more than 6,000 people worked here.]
The birthplace for the German radar was GEMA company (Gesellschaft für elektroakustiche und mechanische Apparate - “Association for Electroacoustic and Mechanical Equipment”), founded by Paul-Günther Erbslöh (1905–2002) and Hans-Karl von Willisen (1906–1966). They worked together and after left Telefunken, developed the first air warning radar system.
The installation was overrun by the Soviets in May 1945. Most of the equipment and many of the people were deported
to Russia as part of the war bounty.
The first radar unit developed by GEMA in 1937 was the FuMG 403 Panoramagerät Stützpunkt(Plan Position Indicator-PPI) display radar, built in 1941 at Tremmen near Berlin (40 km west of the city) at a cost of 500,000 Reich Marks (RM). The 20 m large antenna is located in the top of
the concrete tower and it rotates through 360 deg. at 6 rpm. Range is 120-300 km.
The radar display station is located in the base of the tower and a PPI display. The tower was linked by landline to the headquarters of the 1st Flak Division in the Zoo’s Turm. The site was blown up after the war by the Russians.
[One of the rare known views of the Project C Panoramagerät Tower PPI.]
From the early works on Panorama, GEMA created an advanced and more compact unit, and this would be the start of the radar net of the German defences.
[A FreyaRADAR system at one of the thousand radar sites placed all over the German-occupied Europe.]
Named after the Norse Goddess Freyja, the Freya FuMG 450 was the first operational early warning radar defence system. Before the beginning of WWII, in 1938, just eight of these units had been delivered by GEMA and deployed along the German border manned by the Luftwaffe. The early versions had a range of 60-80 km which was later increased to 120 km. Azimuth accuracy was 1.5 degrees and better. Developed from a Kriegsmarine (Germany’s war navy) radar, its lower frequency range (120-166 MHz vs 368 MHz), longer wavelength (2.5 m vs 50 cm), and longer range. It was more advanced than the British system, but more complex what it means that it was not totally readied and needs improvement when the first raids came.
Freya was first successfully used on December 18, 1939 when two stations detected an approaching daytime raid on Wilhelmshaven by 22 RAF Wellington bombers at a range of 113 km and guided fighter planes toward them via radio, downing half of the enemy’s force. This early success of radar left the Luftwaffe so impressed that Freya network was the chosen one to guard Germany’s western border.
Anyway, these radars were only able to spot and track incoming aircraft, not to determine the exact range and height.
[An RAF photograph of the Freya radar installations at Auderville, France as viewed during 1941.]
[A Dreh-Freya radar and a FuSE62D‘Würzburg’ unit of the Versuchsfeld Werneuchen beim Fliegerhorst at Werneuchen-Brandenburg, some 30 km northeast of Berlin.]
The Nazis developed a complex net to defend the Reich and occupied Europe from air raids. This superb detection system relayed from observation of incoming attacks to the latest and more sophisticated elements of electronic radar and radio to track enemy planes and to assist the AA (anti-aircraft) guns in their role against the Allied ‘Terror-bombers’.
At the beginning of the war, German air detection was based on primary methods and systems like the observation sites.
[Here, a Luftwaffe officer (note the shape of the Eagle in the uniform’s chest) teaches a young Flakhelfer to use a rangefinder device and double telescope in this case a Doppelfernrohr 45º 10x80 Flakfernrohr, to know the range and height of incoming bombers from local ground level.]
After plotting enemy aircraft the site will pass this essential information to the defence and fighter direction centres to defend the Reich territories. This method was highly successful during the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 employed by the British Royal Observer Corps (ROC). At night, it had obviously no usefulness.
The air-defence instruments also consisted of sound location equipment. The Germans used a complex system, called Horchgerät,during early stages of the war, and revitalized during the Summer and Fall 1943 after their radar defence net failed as a consequence of the introduction of the first electronic countermeasures like ‘Window’ (ERC & ECM) by the British.
[A Horchgerätviewed on October 1939 at the outskirts of Berlin, more specifically a Ringtrichter-Richtungshörer (RRH) zur Einweisung der schweren Flak.]
The system idea was to hear the sound of the engines of the incoming aircraft and track their height, warning the defences of an incoming enemy raid. For typical aircraft speeds of that time, sound location only gave a few minutes of warning.
It consists of four acoustic horns, a horizontal pair and a vertical pair, connected by rubber tubes
to stethoscope type earphones worn by the two technicians left and right. The stereo earphones enabled one technician to determine the direction and the other the elevation of the aircraft.
[A Flakhelferin am Horchgerät poses for the camera in January 1943.]
The Altes Museum, sited in the Museuminsel near the Berliner Domwas built between 1823 and 1830 by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781 – 1841) in the neoclassical style to house the Prussian royal family’s art collection. It was called the Königliches Museum (Royal Museum) until 1845 and it was decided to display only “high” art in the building.
[The Altes Museum in ruins, view from the other side of the Lustgarten, dated 1950.]
Highly bombed during World War Two, the museum resulted destroyed by Allied bombs and by street fighting with Russian troops during May 1945. The Museum was rebuilt from 1951, the first in the insel to undergo reconstruction and restoration.
[Another shot of the museum, with the Löwenkämpfer statue (´The Lion fighter`), made by Albert Wolff in 1851 in bronze, as view after the war ended. Notice sheltered status of the building.]
[An aerial view of the destroyed and ruined center of the city with the Stadtschloss in the foreground, the Dom at right and the Altes Museum behind, in July, 1945.]
During National Socialism, the Altes Museum was used as the backdrop for propaganda, both in the museum itself and upon the parade grounds of the redesigned square Lustgarten.
[Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels and Führer Adolf Hitler speaking at the gates of the Museum in Lustgarten during a Nazi-parade, 1938.]
[Photo: LIFE.]
[Photo: LIFE.]
Today, Berlin has restored its condition as one of the most influential cities in art, mixed with her old classic tradition in architecture and neoclassical culture. Example of this was “ALLARTHASBEENCONTEMPORARY”, as reads a neon by italian-artist Maurizio Nannucci in 2008 at the modern Altes Museum. This bright red neon contrast clearly with the dark and burnt afterwars façade.
[Close-view of Nannucci’s red neon behind the Ionic order columns. Note the dark shades, consequence of 1945-battle fires and fumes.]
May 8th means to European countries V-E day: the victory over Nazi-Germany in 1945.
To Berlin, it means the start of a new era. From the ashes of the destroyed Third Reich would raise a new-born country that would be the economic and political engine of the European Union together with her old enemy and neighbour, France.
No other nation, in Contemporary history has been decimated until annihilation like Germany was in 1945. There was no armistice, no peace, just a total and unconditional surrender.
Maybe this unique fact made possible the advent of this second generation country, that marks, firstly the stalemate, and later the rising of the 20th century and the beginning of the project of Europe as a sole and complex unit.
[A German couple seated in front of the ruined Brandenburger Tor after the end of the war. This is a photomontage, not a real image.]
[Soviet troops celebrating the victory in the ‘Great war for the Fatherland’ aboard their tanks in front of the Siegessäule, the Prussian Victory Column at Berlin Tiergarten, May 1945. During the 1945 Battle of Berlin, Soviet Troops nicknamed the column “the Tall Woman”.]
After seizing the Reichstag building and raising their Red flag on its roof on 30th April, Soviet soldiers left their marks in other ways, writing their names, feelings, thoughts and hometowns on the walls and columns. Written in Cyrillic script, these victory graffities were made by soldiers from the 380th, 674th and 756th Rifle Regiments, the units that made the final assault against the Reichstag, many of them were Kazakhstan-born men.
The Graffiti written on the walls were uncovered when the building was converted to house of the German Bundestag. Architect Norman Foster began to remove its inner covering of gypsum fibreboard and asbestos. Paul Baumgarten, the first architect to remodel the building, in the 1960s, had installed the sheets of fibreboard in front of the walls of the original nineteenth-century structure, concealing historical evidence behind new interior surfaces. In an act of what Foster has termed ‘civic vandalism’, Baumgarten had also destroyed the original architectural decoration in many places and removed all traces of history from the walls. By an irony of history, some nineteenth-century decoration and some traces of the battle that raged around the Reichstag building in 1945 survived precisely because they were hidden by the fibreboard.
[Several other Graffiti remains today at the Reichstag’s rooftop, and can be seen by visitors of the building as a historical evidence and first hand memories of the men who were forced to suffer those terrible days in Human history.]
In the photograph, in front of the destroyed Brandenburger Tor and a Soviet IS-2 heavy tank is Yevgeny Khaldei, the Soviet war photographer who took the famous photo of the reenacted flag raising over the Reichstag. The Stalin tank was turret number 414 and belonged to the 7th Independent Guards Heavy Tank Brigade.
[Three more views from a different angle of the scene above related in front of the Brandenburger Tor; these photographies were probably taken on 7 May 1945. The white band brushed to the tank´s turret was an ID to avoid be attacked by Allied fighter-bombers.]
The “Thousand-Year Reich” finally only lasted 12 years and the dream/nightmare started by Hitler and the Nazis caused more than 60 million people dead in the greatest war in History. Between 16 April and 6 May, the Soviets had 304,887 killed, wounded and missing, along with the loss of 2,156 tanks and self-propelled guns, 1,220 artillery pieces and 527 aircraft, althought the true cost is likely to be higher. It is almost impossible to give an accurate figure of German military and civilians died from this last battle.
[A Soviet soldier walks on Berlin´s already defeated Friedrichstraße with Oranienburger Straße (notice U-bahn Oranienburger Tor entry at left, same spot as today) with a dead German soldier laying on the ground. Note Iron Cross on German´s body chest and the FG-42, a machine-gun usually provided to paratroopers.]
