For WW2 interests

[rebbonk]

US images unearthed showing the devastation of Germany during WW2

Story http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 79,00.html

32 pictures related http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotos ... 54868.html

[dutchman]

Thanks Rebbonk

I lived in Germany (a British army barracks to be precise) for a short while before moving to Coventry and what surprised me was that so little of Coventry had been rebuilt when Germany had already been totally reconstructed. Until fairly recently I was also blissfully unaware that a lot of what I thought was "bomb damage" in Coventry at the time was actually-post war slum clearance, or at least what was considered to be "slum clearance" at the time.

[PoundShopPeter]

Certainly a very interesting link, thanks from me also.

Yes dutchman, I always try and get this across to anyone I engage with over the "destruction" of Coventry in the blitz. Hundreds of old buildings survived and many more could probably have been rebuilt. The war gave the planners a clean slate to proceed with their pre-war plans of "modernising" [ or rather killing the heart of ] the city centre. And of course the destruction began before the war. A lot of the slum housing had to go but demolishing Butcher Row was plain criminal.