Warsaw was devastated after the WWII. It is estimated that about 85% of the buildings were destroyed, and only about one thousand people lived in the ruins, compared to more than one million before the war. The communist government that was installed by the Soviet Union after the war initially decided to build <i>a new capital city</i>, because it was calculated that it would be cheaper to build a new one than reconstruct the old one. Later, people started to move back, and Warsaw was reconstructed instead.<p>There is a short movie based on a Russian airplane photo footage taken in 1945, the City of Ruins:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx3aGiurRbQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx3aGiurRbQ</a><p>The general feeling is also quite well represented in "The Pianist (2002)", which I highly recommend.
I just discovered this video, showing Berlin in 1945, a few days ago: <a href="https://vimeo.com/126267047" rel="nofollow">https://vimeo.com/126267047</a> - it's high quality and in color. Very impressive if you are only used to the black and white shots of that time.
Saw this on reddit yesterday,Berlin footage in 1945
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5i9k7s9X_A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5i9k7s9X_A</a>
It's a little sad seeing how most of the old ornate buildings have been replaced with much more generic looking buildings. That's one thing that struck me about Berlin--it looks a lot more like a "typical" American city than a "typical" European city.
Helsinki times did a similiar thing some time ago: <a href="http://files.snstatic.fi/hs/2013/7/sakuvat/" rel="nofollow">http://files.snstatic.fi/hs/2013/7/sakuvat/</a><p>Not that much destruction though.
Interesting how much public transit (in the form of streetcars and rails in the road) can be seen in the older photos, which is almost gone from the newer ones.
Google Earth (Desktop app) has some historical aerial imagery for Berlin, a lot of other German Cities/Warsaw/Gdansk/ from '44,'45,'53<p>For more coverage look for gray spots in this overview map <a href="http://imgur.com/bfvJpR3" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/bfvJpR3</a><p>Helps a lot to get an idea of the extent of destruction.<p>Warsaw has coverage for 1935 and 1945.<p>For Berlin it's helpful to also go to the 1953 imagery to see which structures where demolished.<p><a href="http://www.google.com/earth/explore/showcase/historical.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/earth/explore/showcase/historical.html</a>
It's such a sad shame that Germany has wiped any and all architectural detail or character from their buildings. It's really kind of sad looking at those boring, boorish buildings.
Around 70 million people died in WWII, around 3% of the world population at that time. I find that absolutely horrifying, along with the terror inflicted on civilians on both sides. It's easy to forget just how destructive humans were less than 100 years ago...