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Posts tagged with USAAF

  1. Wittenbergplatz’s back to life

    2024-09-29 16:28:44 UTC

    Berlin, Sommer 1945 Photo: US NARA. In this original colour footage we can see the bombed out and ruined U-Bhf Wittenbergplatz’s entrance hall and its original yellow mustard interior walls (built in 1912), following the end of the war and the reactivation of part of the underground train service in…

  2. Death of the Kabarett Wintergarten

    2024-05-18 11:18:00 UTC

    ‘Step into the roaring twenties and experience the vibrant nightlife of Berlin’s Central Hotel and Wintergarten’ The Wintergarten (Friedrichstraße Nr 143-149) was one of Berlin’s best-known variety theatres located in the heart of the city, a popular destination for locals and tourists alike.  Owned by Hermann Gebers, this…

  3. Bomb shelter in Prague

    2023-03-09 13:37:42 UTC

    ‘We were impressed by the absence of flak on the bomb run.’ – Howard Pinner, Pilot, 603rd Bomb Squadron, USAAF – Photo: praguemorning.cz During our recent trip to Prague last week we had the opportunity to visit a very interesting air-raid shelter, part of a guided tour itinerary about…

  4. Wittenbergplatz im Krieg

    2022-11-18 16:30:15 UTC

    ‘Crashed at Wittenbergplatz, Berlin’ Photo: akg-images (AKG55275). Located between Nollendorfplatz and Auguste Viktoria Platz (today’s Breitscheidplatz), Wittenbergplatz is one of the best known plazas of the city of Berlin. It was laid out between 1889 and 1892 in the course of urban development in the western suburbs of…

  5. 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…

  6. 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…

  7. 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…

  8. Hansaviertel runway

    2022-03-03 15:49:00 UTC

    ‘The take-off was made under hailing Russian fire and as the plane rose to roof-top level it was picked up by countless searchlights and at once breaketed in a barrage of shelling’. – Hanna Reitsch, 29 April, 1945 – Photo: LIFE © Time Inc (115928934). It was mid…

  9. Luftangriffe auf Pergamon

    2021-10-08 18:19:00 UTC

    Photo: ©Zentralarchiv/Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (ZA 1.1.6./04906). During the research work about Berlin city, its streets and its inhabitants during the war and the air bombings, it is quite common to come across photos that show the ruined state and the damage caused by the war, most of them taken…

  10. Berlin unter Bomben • Steglitz

    2019-10-28 19:46:00 UTC

    ‘steht nichts’ [Photo: Trustees of the IWM / Tony Redding. Life and Death in Bomber Command. Fonthill Media, 2013.] [Berlin 1/2 March 1943: this night oblique taken by an RAF bomber during the raid shows smoke drifting from fires in the Steglitz area (A) and a concentration of fires around…

  11. Yanks!

    2019-07-06 17:20:21 UTC

    On July 4th, 1942, RAF Bomber Command sent 12 Boston Mk III light bombers (American built Douglas A-20s bearing British roundels) to bomb in a daylight raid four German Luftwaffe airfields on Holland: De Koog, Bergen/Alkamaar, Haanstede and Valkenberg air bases. Half of these bombers were assigned to the…

  12. The Opera - Reconstruction and Death

    2019-01-14 17:07:00 UTC

    When the Staatsoper den Linden was severely damaged by British bombs in April 1941, Hitler urgently ordered its reconstruction, as it was one of his favourite buildings from his fanatical devotion to Opera and Richard Wagner’s works [December 1942: Nazi-parade of a guard of honour at Unter den Linden on…
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