Berlin was Germany’s largest and most important city when the Second World War started in 1939. This city paid the price for being the Reich’s Capital, and in many ways, it still remembers what happened in 1945 in its streets and buildings.
When we moved to Berlin back in 2012, we did not think we’d see so many scars of a war that happened so many years ago. Now I know how wrong we were. It is not hard to see buildings with bullet holes from a war that occurred over 70 years ago. More recent are the permanent scars of a wall that cut the city in two and that can be seen throughout the city.
When you go through these new pictures released by Life Magazine, you can see what Berlin had to overcome to become the capital of one of the most prosperous countries in the world today. It is a work in progress, still today.
Berlin in 1945 was a city scarred by a war that almost destroyed it all. And, even though it might be heavy for some to see the pictures here, it is a testimony of history that we cannot and should never forget.
History cannot repeat itself like this; this is why these silent visual stories from seventy years ago need space.
