Berlin 1945: World War II: Photos of the Aftermath

by Michael Brettin, Peter Kroh, Cindy Opitz (Translation)

Berlin, in May 1945: World War II is over in Europe. The Soviet army has conquered Berlin, a city reduced to rubble, and now under martial law. Soldiers from America, Great Britain, and France will move in a few months later. Broken tanks and makeshift barricades are littering the streets, tenements and churches were turned into bombed-out shells, tunnels have been flooded and train tracks destroyed. German soldiers are been hauled off to POW-camps in Siberia, while old men are cutting up dead horses for food, women are trading clothing for survival, and children are left to their own devices in the ruins. And the victors, Russian soldiers of the Red Army, look as much exhausted as the defeated. These rare pictures have been taken by photographers of the Red Army and by Germans in their employ immediately after the surrender. They are published for the first time in the United States, allowing a glimpse into an era of destruction and desperation, but also survival and rebuilding. Nothing like this has been published in decades. Every picture is a story about the destitution of war and post-war, but also the unshakeable optimism that made survival possible inmidst the impossible. These never-seen pictures of Berlin in runs are so forceful, because for those Berliners, destruction was an everyday experience. This view of history does not leave anybody untouched. Bernd Heimberger, Literaturmarktinfo.de A testimony of the final battle, of death, destruction and hopelessness—but also about life resurrecting between rubble and ruins. These photos depict a grotesque normalcy, beyond the well-known iconography of heroic liberations and optimistic rebuilding.Der Spiegel A touching and breathtaking selection of images from the immediate post-war era. At times eerie and at times prosaic, the photographs, many taken by victorious Soviet Red Army soldiers, show ordinary people doing extraordinary things in order to rebuild their lives, literally and figuratively, amid the ruins of a defeated city. Berlin 1945 is a historical archive that acts as a window on the aftermath of total war, made all the more poignant by the knowledge that the division of Berlin to follow would result in further suffering. Jason Walsh, European correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor After decades of intense scholarship, few areas of World War II history remain as unexplored or unexamined as the subjects in this haunting book. Berlin 1945. World War Photos of the Aftermath brings to life people the world has too often relegated en masse to the ranks of accessories to Hitler's crimes. For historians and history buffs alike, this look at post-war Berlin will prove invaluable.-- Worldmeets.US Founder and Managing Editor William Kern "Berlin 1945" is like no other World War II volume yet seen in America. It presents over 200 pages of stark black-and-white photographs, most of them published here for the first time, of the immediate aftermath of the fall of Berlin--taken mainly by Soviet soldiers in the weeks before the allies from the West arrived. So we see it the unfathomable rubble, the homeless and the hungry, the German soldiers marched off to prison camps. And the beginnings of recovery and return of the human spirit. Each of the chapters are introduced with invaluable short essays. Even if you think you've seen-it-all-before on the European war "Berlin 1945" is likely to surprise you. --Greg Mitchell, The Nation magazine, author (with Robert Jay Lifton) of "Hiroshima in America" and other books. 'A veritable gold mine of historical and, above all, photographical treasures, with something for everyone in this book, and everything in it, from death to birth, from joy to sadness, from optimism to resignation.'McCallin, author of the 'Man From Berlin' and the Gregor Reinhardt series of historical mysteries.'

218 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2014

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stark, honest and fascinating. Humanity at it's lowest point. So many peoples lives destroyed and reduced to an animal existence by following an evil ideology. I kept thinking as I flipped thru this that it would be great to see how the same areas looked before the war and how they look now. It's not a then and now book but I think it would give better context had they done this. There's an apartment block shown here that was recently on a Rick Steves Europe (PBS) that was a socialist workers apartment complex. It turned into a squatters den until the wall fell and capitalism took over and now is a thriving artist community so that peaked my curiosity.